


follow the sun

by verdantstars



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Angsty Second Half, Background Relationships, Claude POV, F/F, F/M, Female My Unit | Byleth, Fluffy First Half, Grief, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, angst but make it melancholy, content warnings for specific chapters will be added in chapter notes, morally ambiguous Byleth, past major character death, verdant wind
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:08:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 42,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22080844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verdantstars/pseuds/verdantstars
Summary: In the tomb-like dark, the woman on the throne shines like starlight.Despite the very real ache in his chest whenever he wakes, Claude Amir Nasim knows that the woman haunting his dreams for the past few weeks is nothing more than a figment of his imagination—a gorgeous mirage whipped up by a cocktail of stress and painkillers and a nasty concussion from a field trip gone south. There are so many other things to be concerned about this year than chasing a fantasy. Like choosing what to research for his archeology thesis. Or dodging graduation questions to avoid the existential angst of having to say goodbye to the one place he considers home.But when the woman on the throne appears in his advisor’s office one morning, Claude realizes that there may be more pressing mysteries to attend to during his final year at Garreg Mach.
Relationships: My Unit | Byleth/Claude von Riegan
Comments: 213
Kudos: 336





	1. when you've only got a hundred years

In the tomb-like dark, the woman on the throne shines like starlight.

Nothing could have prepared Claude for the way his breath leaves when he sees her—for the way his empty lungs bear down on his pounding heart or for the dry, cotton-mouthed feeling that he tries to chase down with whatever saliva he can muster. They don’t mention this kind of thing in stories—the pain and the fear that accompany the giddiness of being utterly besotted at first sight. But it’s the fact that he doesn’t care about either of those things that sends him reeling.

Who would have thought that he, Claude Amir Nasim—resident smartass and world-weary son of two diplomats—could fall so easily for an obvious figment of his imagination? Yet here he is, gaping at a woman who’s now staring at him as if he were the ghost, her sleep-addled eyes wide behind a curtain of hair. 

As always, Claude has questions. Questions like who are you? What are you? Why did you choose here of all places to take a nap, and why does it hurt so much to even look at you? Each move the woman makes as she rises from her seat is too loud for this claustrophobic dark, so much so that he can almost feel the brush of her sleeves on the stone against his cheek, her shallow yawn through his hair. 

Her hair is the color of seafoam, Claude thinks, watching how it crashes about her wobbly legs as she descends the steps from her throne.

By the time she stands before him, it’s far too late for his silver tongue to weave him some elegant greeting or charming quip. He opens his mouth, hoping that whatever he says next won’t make him sound like an idiot, but when the words leave his tongue, the lilt of his question settles into something unexpected.

“Hey, Teach,” he whispers. Like a prayer.

  
☼☼☼

“Mr. Nasim, if you must insist on informality, then earn it by setting a good example for your students and arriving to class on time.”

Claude squints as his vision settles. Threads of gold diffuse into rays of afternoon sun, and flat walls of gray take on the texture of ancient stonework. Blurry circles turn into faces turn into expressions, ranging from curious to horrified to mildly annoyed. They look expectantly to the green-haired man at the front of the room ( _green like a forest_ , Claude thinks, _not like the sea_ ), but the man simply continues to add to the elegant scrawl on the whiteboard, saying nothing.

“Sorry, Professor Cichol,” Claude says, piecing things together even as he shakes the last fuzzy spots from his vision. “Won’t happen again.”

The other Medieval Fodlan TA, some graduate student hoping to curry their advisor’s favor early in the semester, shoots a disapproving look as Claude shuffles his way to a desk at the back. Some of the first-year students offer a discrete wave when he passes, which Claude returns with the knowledge that a few of them will undoubtedly try to leverage this the next time they’re running late to his section.

Busy as she is using her throwaway elective to catch up on some online shopping, Hilda doesn’t even look up when Claude slides into the seat next to her. Yet, as expected, there’s a message waiting for him when he opens his laptop.

_Seriously?_

Claude’s gaze flickers to the whiteboard. The topic this time isn’t his favorite, but it’s basic enough that he could probably write the discussion plan for his section in his sleep. Claude pulls up two windows—one for Hilda’s message and one for browsing—and lets his fingers fly.

_Alright. What did I do?_

In his periphery, Hilda shifts her hair over her shoulder, curtaining her phone from view. _Well on top of being suuuuper late, you called him ‘Teach’ in public again._

Claude rolls his eyes. _You’d think after three years as his advisee and A’s in all his classes, I’d have already earned it._

 _Gotta look tough with all these freshmen around!_ A pause, then more typing. _Seriously, though, what’s up with you? You looked completely out of it._

Claude’s brows furrow. It’s an interesting question—one that he’d like the answer to himself. Truth be told, he barely remembers walking into class at all. The only thing that comes to mind is the dream that’s been haunting him lately—an endless stretch of dark and the strange woman who shines like a star. _I must have spaced out_ , he finally types. _Thought I was someplace else for a moment._

_Concussion problems?_

_I guess?_

Another pause. Then, a sudden flurry of manicured nails on a phone screen. _So yesterday, I saw this news story about someone who had a concussion, ok? The person kept forgetting where they were after their accident, and then just all of a sudden, they dropped dead right in front of their roommate!_

Claude takes a second to re-read the text. _Um. What the fuck, Hilda?_

_You should really, really get that checked out is what I’m saying! I’ll even go to the health center with you after class! Special offer from yours truly~_

Hilda is conveniently focused on the lecture now, a lock of bubblegum pink hair twirled nonchalantly around her finger. Claude stifles a chuckle despite himself.

 _Awww, I didn’t know you’d be so worried for me._ After a second he adds, _Thanks, Hilda. I’ll be okay._

No more messages come after that. Seteth’s voice drones steadily onward in the afternoon warmth. Students shift and fidget in their seats, which creak and groan with age. Distant sounds of people playing ball in the courtyard drift in through a window left slightly ajar for the late summer wind. It’s another lazy afternoon at Garreg Mach University, like all the other ones before it.

Claude stares at the blinking cursor in his browser’s search bar and, fighting a yawn, starts typing whatever keywords come to mind in order to stay awake.

_Throne._

_Tomb._

_Goddess._

_Green._

☼☼☼

The thing about living in a place surrounded by mountains is that dusk tends to fall early, even at summer’s end. The early dark suits Claude just fine—he does his best work chasing his thoughts into the night, watching the few stars that make it through the light pollution over the rim of his coffee mug. It’s the being enclosed on all sides thing that makes him squirm, makes him have to clamp down on his primal urge to flee to somewhere far away. The sensation is easy to ignore behind the lofty walls of the university, but as he rides the monorail after class back down into Garreg Mach City, the mountains seem to rise like the jaws of some ancient beast. 

The Golden Deer Group House—or, as Lorenz calls it, “one of my family’s many properties, so please remember that you are lucky to live here, Claude”—is only a few stops down the line, tucked in a well-off neighborhood with twisting roads and enough disdain for public transportation that it takes Claude at least thirty minutes uphill on foot from the station. By the normal definition of house, it’s more winter chalet than suburban abode, relatively unassuming if not for its size. There are seven bedrooms and three floors, the bottom-most floor rooted deep into the ground so as to be unnoticeable save for one door leading into a small yard. The makeshift eighth bedroom, Claude’s bedroom, is a converted attic space tucked underneath the sharply slanted roof, which had been built to mirror the slope of the mountainside it sat on.

According to Lorenz, the Hellmans had designed the property for small family reunions—a place to escape from the city, if only for a while. Instead of the harsh concrete and glass of their neighbors, they built it from natural wood and stone. The only overt expressions of lavishness are the gated driveway, lined by Gloucester purple rose hedges stubbornly remaining in bloom, and the indulgently wide wrap-around deck overlooking the city, unhindered by either tree or building. It’s a wonder that Lorenz managed to convince his father to let all eight of them live there at all, but Claude has little to complain about. After all, the quiet home with its earthy colors and deceptively generous space suits the Deer’s needs as if it had been made for them.

He makes it up the driveway a little after five, the green accents of the house’s exterior so dark in the fading afternoon light that they disappear against the pines that line the sides of the property. It doesn’t surprise him as much as it should to see Lysithea waiting for him in the foyer when he arrives, and it certainly doesn’t surprise him to see a scowl on her face and her hands on her hips. Claude shoots her his most disarming grin, but doesn’t make it further than halfway back out the door before her tiny, vice-like grip catches him by the wrist.

“Hmmm,” the girl mutters, ignoring the panic on Claude’s face when she guides him to the common room couch and forces him to sit. “Delayed reaction time. Not great.”

As Lysithea pulls up a chair to sit across from him, Claude calculates how risky it would be to vault over the backrest and sprint his way up to his room. In theory, it would be easy to simply push past her. She’s a tiny girl, a few years too young for a college senior, with porcelain pale skin and jet black hair which, combined, grant an almost doll-like quality to her. But this, Claude knows, is a clever ruse. There is nothing fragile about Lysithea. She is all sharp angles and explosive will, which he feels very keenly when her bony knees press up hard against his, limiting his mobility. 

“I’m going to ask you a few questions now, okay?” She says, pulling out her phone as if preparing to read from a list.

“Lysithea, you gotta be kidding—“

“What year is it?”

Claude sighs. “Unification Year 870. If you’re asking about month next, it’s Horsebow Moon.”

Lysithea hums vaguely, looking undeterred. “Which dorm did we live in during freshman year?”

“Golden Deer, Building B. Third Floor.”

“What prank did you play on Lorenz during orientation?”

“Switched his shampoo with hair dye when he was out of our room. His hair was neon yellow for days.” Claude sighs dramatically, sitting up to get a better look at the text on the girl’s phone screen. “Really Lysithea, I’m offended that you think I’d forget that.”

“Stop it,” she hisses, then moves the device behind her back before he can get the chance to read anything. “What was your reasoning for vetoing Ignatz’s choice for movie night two weeks ago?”

“Are we really going to bring this up? Look, the way _Conquerors_ depicts the Five Year War is completely off base. First of all, there are tons of sources from that era corroborating the prejudice that the King of Unification faced as a child. The idea that he made up his backstory specifically to seduce the Ruler of Dawn and establish Almyran supremacy is historical revisionism used by Fodlan nationalists who want to shit all over our diplomatic structures. Furthermore—”

“Well, factual recall seems intact,” Lysithea mutters, brushing her dark hair out of her eyes. “Now how about light sensitivity…”

“I’m fine!” Claude growls, shielding his eyes from the keychain flashlight that suddenly appears in Lysithea’s hands. “I didn’t miss a single class today, and I even took the monorail instead of my bike, just like everyone told me to.”

“Oh yeah? Walking into a room and forgetting where you are in the middle of talking to someone doesn’t sound like fine to me.”

Claude groans. _Hilda_.

“You know you’re not a doctor yet, right?” he whines, swatting at the stray flashlight beam that manages to catch his eye. 

Soft is not a word he’d use to describe Lysithea, but it’s the first that comes to mind when the girl casts her eyes downwards in embarrassment. “Just let me worry about you, okay? You gave us all a scare last week. Even Lorenz was panicking.”

“He was just worried about what to do for my part of the rent,” Claude teases but without heat. He’d been wondering why Lorenz seemed more tolerable lately.

“You were out for _two_ days,” she snaps back. “It’s a miracle that you didn’t need stitches for that hit. Or that it didn’t get infected with whatever ancient bacteria was down there.” After a few more scrutinizing looks, the girl pats him on the shoulder. “Alright, done. Happy now?”

“My sincerest gratitude, Doctor.” Claude bows low—just enough to earn a groan of annoyance—and shoots her a cheeky wink for good measure. When he pulls himself off the couch, the unusual silence of their common room finally hits him. “Where’s everyone else?”

“Raph and Leonie are working on the grill,” Lystihea replies. “They wanted to celebrate surviving the first month of classes. Everyone else should be at the grocery store.”

“Now _that’s_ worth making a fuss about,” Claude grins, already following the smell of charcoal.

Lorenz’s car, a sleek black thing that Lorenz spends way too much time keeping clean, is pulling into the driveway by the time Claude makes it out to the deck. Uninterested in debating the taste of different charcoal brands (Raph is putting up a good fight, but fighting with Leonie is like talking to a wall), he leans over the railing and watches his other four housemates carry their spoils through the backyard and up the steps.

“Hey, thanks for sicking Lysithea on me, Hilda,” he calls out at the sight of her pink hair. “Sure was fun to come home to a full medical interrogation.”

“Oh, it’s the least I could do for my dear old Claude,” is Hilda’s sugar-sweet reply as she breezes past with a grocery bag on her arm. Lorenz, struggling with four bags, totters after her.

“Could someone please take these from me? I still need to lock the car.”

“I got them,” says Ignatz, rushing to Lorenz’s aid.

“Hey, veggies and veggie patties first!” Raphael shouts as Leonie rummages for meat like a bloodhound on the scent. “Bring them here, Marianne.”

Marianne smiles—a sight not as rare as it used to be, but dazzling nonetheless—and carries the bag she brought down from Lorenz’s car to the grill. “Thanks, Raphael.”

Like clockwork, the Golden Deer fall into an orderly chaos. Ignatz frets loudly over not having enough clean plates, while Raphael and Leonie continue their debate over the grill and Lysithea chews out Lorenz for nearly decapitating her with his sharp elbow. The wad of napkins they used to stabilize the wobbly end of the deck table somehow escapes during the rush, which Hilda discovers when an open bottle of ketchup topples over and stains her blouse. Marianne is the first to comfort her.

It’s been a while since they’ve been like this, Claude thinks, all eight of them running amok together. Their freshman year had been full of moments like these. Of late night mess hall runs and stress baking parties in the dorm kitchens. There’s less of this lately, the nights too preoccupied with whatever project or activity or job each of them has, so after he pulls beers from the fridge, Claude settles in to enjoy the ruckus while he can. By the time food appears on the table, the last of daylight has retreated beyond the mountains and the buildings of Garreg Mach glitter below like a bowl of stars.

“I’d like to propose a toast,” Claude says, rising from his seat.

“Please don’t,” Lorenz groans.

“Since the day we set first foot on campus, we’ve been dreaming of the day we’d finally graduate. But why the rush? We’ve got another eighty years or so to enjoy adulthood. Now that senior year is finally here, don’t you think we should take a moment to celebrate all the incredible things that we’re doing now?”

Claude raises his beer bottle toward Hilda, startling her from her conversation with Marianne.

“To Hilda, our successful entrepreneur! I hear your online store’s been seeing a lot of business these days.”

Hilda winks at Lorenz and Leonie when she clinks her glass of cider with theirs. “Got a few more necklace orders to take the post office tomorrow morning if someone could give me a lift.”

“To Leonie,” Claude continues, shifting his attention to the opposite side of the table. “Our resident superwoman who somehow manages two part-time jobs and several extracurriculars without breaking a sweat.”

Leonie huffs with both pride and exasperation. “Tuition’s not gonna pay itself,” she says as she notes Hilda’s ride request on her phone, a pre-paid clunker with only enough memory to maintain her bloated calendar.

“And here’s to Raphael, the immovable wall of the Garreg Mach hockey team!” The other man’s hands are preoccupied with food, so Claude settles for clinking his glass against Hilda’s. “Can’t wait to see you and Dimitri bring another championship home, buddy.”

Raphael pumps a fist in the air and shouts something vaguely resembling “Go Wolves!” around the burger in his mouth. Lorenz, sitting next to him, discreetly slides over a stack of napkins that the other immediately uses to wipe his face.

“Speaking of sports,” Claude continues. “I hear Ignatz beat his personal best at archery practice while I was out cold. Looks like I’ve got some competition to look out for this season.”

Ignatz flushes as everyone cheers in response. “Aw, shucks, guys.”

“You’ve worked very hard,” Lysithea insists, “I’ve seen you practicing your form downstairs.” Her rare offer of praise only ushers an even brighter flush to the boy’s face.

“And you’re no slouch either, Lysithea,” Claude says with a grin. “I’m sure you’ll have your pick of med schools this application season. What was your exam score again?”

“I doubt the actual number would make any sense to you,” she teases, “but I suppose scoring in the top one percentile does help.”

“Hey, don’t forget to praise Marianne!” Hilda cries, arm curled protectively around her former roommate.

Claude chuckles. “How could I?” He raises his bottle again. “To Marianne, healer of hearts and horses. The therapeutic horsemanship program is lucky to have you as their star instructor.” 

Marianne quickly hides her face in the arm Hilda has curled around her shoulders, but the bits of a smile that can be seen are stunning.

“And last but not least,” Claude says, finally turning to the end of the table. “A toast to Lorenz, whose poetry was published in not one, but two literary magazines this past month.”

“It’s three if you count the online publication,” Lorenz sniffs, but the pleased look on his face says all.

“And to Claude,” cries Raphael suddenly, raising his beer high. “For making it out of the hospital okay!”

With a laugh that only barely catches in his throat, Claude reaches over the table and clinks his glass against Raph’s. “Hey, I’ll drink to that.”

Later that night, long after the last fireflies of summer fade into the dark and the Deer crawl sleepily back to their rooms, Claude dreams of a long corridor, one of many bright lights and unopened doors. There is a hint of celebration in the air, the laughs of his loved ones mingling with a tune so shapeless that it might belong to any song. To our futures, they seem to say. To Claude!

He stops once, his hand hovering over a door knob like a hummingbird, all frantic, thrumming energy. He knows, instinctively, what’s on the other side. An ambassadorship, like his mother’s. Years of travel, of dinners and receptions. The door next over is a tenured professorship. Shelves upon shelves of books towering like buildings.

He drops his hand and continues walking. On and on until the carpet beneath his feet turns to sand and the walls turn to dust and his eyes are blinded by a sea of white.

On and on and on and on. One foot in front of the other.

  
☼☼☼

The morning sun shines bright in Seteth’s office, catching the fine streaks of gray in the man’s hair as he silently flips through Claude’s session plans. It’s odd to see Seteth’s age showing, Claude thinks through a dull haze that tastes a little too much like the rum Hilda broke out an hour in to their barbecue. The thought itself is even odder, really, given that Seteth never bothers to look young in the first place. Even with his absurdly youthful face, the man is the quintessential image of the old academic—all musty book smell and hot tea and sweater vests even in summer. Today he’s wearing a dark blue tartan vest over a short-sleeve button down, one that carries a sharp hint of tobacco from a post-breakfast smoke. It’s the same Seteth that he’s always known, but Claude still can’t help but mull over the little discrepancies he’s been catching lately. The occasional weird limp when walking from a lectern. A wince when standing up from a chair. When Claude was a freshman, Seteth had seemed untouchable, but now... 

It’s not a pleasant thought to linger on.

Claude scans the book titles on the shelf just over Seteth’s shoulder, willing his mind to keep elsewhere. The organization doesn’t change much from visit to visit—in another life, Seteth might make an excellent librarian—but Claude makes a game of it anyways. Today, _The Lost Royal Tomb_ stands next to _Geneology of the Gods_ , and there’s an empty spot where _Disappearances: The Ruler of Dawn_ usually is.

The sound of a seat shifting draws his attention back to his advisor. “Very good, Claude,” the man says, sliding the papers back across his immaculately tidy desk. “You’ve done well, given the circumstances.”

“I wouldn’t take all the credit, Seteth,” Claude replies with an easy grin. “Your lecture on the ancient crest system is pretty easy to follow. The discussion questions practically write themselves.”

Seteth twitches a bit, and not for the first time, Claude is unsure if it’s at his name or the insinuation that his lecture was too simple. Being the only student on a first name basis with the “Stone Dragon of Garreg Mach”, at least in private, still feels surreal, and even after three years, Claude isn’t quite convinced that he isn’t getting points marked off whenever he uses it. 

(“Teach” nearly got him kicked out of Seteth’s class as a freshman, after all—he’d never seen a man’s face pale, or redden, so quickly.)

Seteth removes his reading glasses—another reminder of age, Claude realizes with a start—and tucks the folded pair into his chest pocket.

“How have you been faring?” Seteth asks.

“After the accident?” The guilt on the man’s face has an unsettling effect on Claude. Like he'd just stumbled into a puppy on accident. “Hey, how were you supposed to know that a long lost royal tomb was going to open up right in the middle of class? Not your fault that it decided to open up right on top of me.”

Seteth hums, his clasped hands tensing in a nervous way that Claude has never observed before. “Are you sure you remember nothing of what happened?”

“Nothing past taking the elevator into the catacombs with you and the rest of the class,” Claude sighs. “Trust me, I’ve been trying.”

Out of curiosity, he tries again. Retraces his way down into the Garreg Mach catacombs and around the wrong turn he must have taken before his memories run up against a wall. This time he’s rewarded for the effort with a sudden flash of pain behind his temples, one that results in a very visible grimace if Seteth’s concerned look is anything to go by.

“Does it hurt?” Seteth asks, expression tight. Before Claude can respond, the man leans over and opens one of the side drawers in his desk. “I have medicine if you require some.”

Claude’s brows shoot up at the bottles rolling around in the compartment, labels suspiciously reminiscent to the medical-strength painkillers he had been prescribed. Makes sense that the brother of the university doctor would have access to the good stuff, but still. Wow. He makes a mental note of that for the future, then politely shakes his head.

“Alright. Inform me if it does.” The drawer closes with the unmistakable click of a lock. With that, Seteth relaxes, which in turn, immediately sets Claude on edge. “Since you’re here, I’d like to discuss a different matter as well.”

Oh great.

“Have you already decided your plans for after graduation?”

The laugh that escapes Claude echoes thinly against the office’s stone walls. “Didn’t you ask me this a week ago Seteth?” He tries for nonchalance and only barely manages. “Little early for a follow-up, don’tcha think?”

If Seteth notices his discomfort, he ignores it. “I would be happy to write a recommendation letter for you, should you choose to pursue graduate studies. The Almyran Research Institute has a robust archeology program, though given your grades in your international studies electives, I imagine you’d be successful in their School of Foreign Service as well.”

Claude sinks in his chair and steeples his fingers over his chest. “Look, Seteth, I—“

A knock sounds at the door.

Seteth rubs the bridge of his nose with a sigh, just barely suppressing his annoyance at the interruption. “You may enter.”

Claude is just about ready to kiss the person who saved him from more questioning, but nothing can prepare him for the way the world skids to a halt when she slides into the room—for the way his breath leaves at the sight of her seafoam green hair or for the bone-deep ache he feels when her eyes meet his.

It’s a Thursday morning late in Horsebow Moon, and for the first time in his life, Claude understands what it’s like to be on the other end of some divine joke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So for my New Year's Resolution, I've decided to actually try and work on a fic for once. Thank you so much for taking the time to read. This is the first time I’ve written something in over five years, so I apologize for the rust.
> 
> A few house-keeping notes:
> 
>   * Most reincarnated characters will not have the same last names as their past lives unless those names would not have been recorded in history. For example, Raphael faded into relative obscurity in most endings, so here he is still Raphael Kirsten. But Lorenz, a prominent noble who held notable positions in Byleth’s cabinet, would likely be remembered as Lorenz, Duke of Gloucester or Lorenz of the House Gloucester. Thus, Lorenz Hellman.
>   * Characters will have different motivations and upbringings and thus, their actions may sometimes not align with what their past selves might have done. This is done very intentionally, but if it feels like someone is wildly out of character, please do point it out!
>   * History doesn’t have the most precise memory. If there's a discussion about the past that doesn’t match with the games, that is completely intentional.
> 



	2. and I'll tell you how you missed it when you wake

In the morning light, the woman doesn’t shine so much as hum with an almost imperceptible aura, one that lingers like salt on an ocean wind. Her hair is shorter, now just beneath her shoulders, and she’s dressed in a pair of black shorts and a black blazer that ends just a little too early in the sleeves. Up close, she looks to be about Claude’s age, but her green eyes are endless. As timeless as the sea.

All common sense screams otherwise, but this is her, alright. The woman from his dream.

Claude’s halfway out of his seat before he realizes it and only manages to slam his gaping mouth shut just as those green, green eyes turn his way. Her expression is cool when she looks him over—not quite distant but not quite curious. Either of those words would imply emotion, which the woman betrays little of, if at all, and she spares him only a glance before turning her attention to Seteth.

“Your papers.” She hands Seteth the manila envelope tucked under her arm, which the man takes with a sigh.

“I thought I told you to stop by in the afternoon,” Seteth mutters. There’s an undercurrent of annoyance that would send any student into a cold sweat, but the woman simply shrugs, unphased.

“I had time. Did I interrupt something?”

“Not at all,” Claude interjects. He reaches for a handshake but falters under the weight of the woman’s gaze, her lagoon-still eyes peering past him into someplace far away. The nakedness he feels sends a shiver down his spine, but true to form, Claude hides his discomfort behind a grin. “The name’s Claude. And you are?” 

Seteth sighs again. “Claude, this is my cousin—“

“Byleth,” the woman says, taking Claude’s hand after a hesitant beat. Her palm is calloused, both warm and unyielding. It’s nothing that he would have expected just by looking at her, and yet—

— _we have the strength to scale the walls between us, to reach out our hands in_ —

Claude winces, exhaling sharp through his clenched teeth. 

“What’s wrong?” Byleth asks, the note of concern a ripple in her otherwise steady tone.

“Ah, it’s nothing.” 

Was it? Claude wonders. That was his voice ringing in his head, loud as a summer storm.

“It didn’t seem like nothing,” Byleth says, mirroring his thoughts.

“Just getting over a tiny concussion. It—.”

“Concussion?” 

Both Seteth and Claude jolt up at the ice in Byleth’s voice, and when she turns her gaze to Seteth, the man shrinks in his seat. “You told me that your students were fine after the excursion,” the woman says, menacingly low. 

“And they were fine, for the most part,” Seteth replies. At that, the cold rolling off of Byleth only doubles in intensity.

Curious, Claude thinks.

“I signed a waiver,” he offers, watching the woman’s expression shift from icy to vaguely perplexed.

“A waiver?”

“I’ll explain some other time. Now Claude, please don’t—”

“Yeah, a waiver. You know, ‘I recognize all the risks I take are my own and I promise not to hold my professors or the school accountable,’ et cetera.”

Byleth attention snaps back to Seteth. “Is that what you’re concerned about nowadays? Being held accountable?”

His advisor shoots him a glare, and Claude has only a precious few seconds to enjoy it because Byleth’s hands are now cupping his face, and her eyes are looking into his eyes, green on green.

“Um.” For the second time that morning, Claude finds himself struggling for words. He expected Byleth’s fingers to be cold—surgical, even—but instead they are unnaturally warm against his scalp, a tingling heat spreading from her fingertips and deep, deep down into the fog of his headache. She’s inspecting him, that much is for certain, but there’s a distinct difference between what Lysithea did last night and _this_.   
  
“Didn’t think I’d run into a doctor this fine morning,” he jokes—a bid to distract from the encroaching blush on his face.

“You haven’t,” is her retort, sharp as her frown. “I’ve only been trained in some field first aid.” She lingers for just a moment longer, heat pulsing steadily from her fingers, then pulls back. “Pupils look fine. You’ll be okay.”

There's a physical sensation of something being pulled from him when she withdraws, which isn’t entirely unpleasant other than traitorous way his body leans towards her departing warmth. Seteth looks disgruntled, lips drawn tight, but even as her expression settles back into neutrality, Byleth seems almost pleased with herself.

“Thanks,” Claude fumbles. “Uh, Byleth. Right?”

“That is correct.”

“You know,” he says carefully, the cogs in his head turning as he mounts over his embarrassment. “I always suspected that Seteth’s parents were history geeks, given his name. Didn’t realize that it ran in the family.”

Byleth’s eyes narrow. “What do you mean?”

“You’re named after the Ruler of Dawn, aren’t you?” Claude continues. “But only a very small camp of historians prefer Byleth instead of Beles. Most people don’t even know about that variation, and it’s controversial enough among the historians that do know it. Even Seteth teaches it as Beles.”

The woman frowns at Seteth, who simply raises a brow, then purses her lips, contemplative. The fact that she has to think for a moment sends a rush through Claude, and he struggles not to let it show. 

“Indeed,” Seteth says before Byleth can respond. “Our family certainly has its...quirks. I apologize, Claude, but could you perhaps stop by again later? My cousin is here to assist in researching the tomb, and there are some important things I’d like to discuss with her.”

The cousins exchange a heated look, one that fails to escape Claude’s notice. He tucks the image in the back of his mind for later, then hoists his backpack onto one shoulder.

“Nice meeting you, Byleth,” Claude says as he slinks out the door. “Maybe I’ll run into you sometime?”

“Which camp are you in?” 

He stops the door with his foot and turns to look over his shoulder. “Excuse me?”

“Byleth or Beles,” the woman asks, the lightness in her voice betraying the curiosity that her expression does not. “Which do you prefer?”

Claude pretends to think for a moment. “I’ve always liked the sound of Byleth, really. Besides,” he adds with a wink, “it’s fun to be the contrarian every now and again.” 

And it’s at that—to Claude’s surprise—that the corners of the woman’s mouth twitch slightly upward.

  
☼☼☼

  
In the following week, Claude sees Byleth everywhere.

It’s never for long. Nothing more than a flash of green in his periphery, disappearing around corners and behind library shelves. Blending into the post-lunch crowd at the mess hall. The first couple of times, Claude wonders if he should follow Hilda’s advice for once and stop by the health center. But in the days following his encounter with Byleth, his mind is as clear as an Almyran sky in summer, and before long, he concludes that the woman really is, against all odds, constantly there. 

He has two theories.

The first is that it’s sheer coincidence. The history and archeology departments are confined to the former monastery portion of campus, and if she works with Seteth, there are very few places she’d go that wouldn’t overlap with his own daily route. This is the sensible hypothesis, the one that Claude would be content with if he had any interest in adhering strictly to common sense.

The second is that she’s observing him. Darting back and forth into his orbit, waiting for something. Or someone. The question, in that case, is what she could be waiting for.

Once during this little dance of theirs, he catches a glimpse of her on his commute, the angle just right on the monorail’s grimy windows to lock eyes with her reflection from across the rail car. Like always, it’s only for a moment, and Claude almost misses it when the train stops and the crush of commuters carries him out to the platform in their dash for home. He should be happy, he knows, to have gained some evidence for his theory, but to his frustration, the image of her through the glass weighs too heavily for him to celebrate.

Even as a reflection, she looked incredibly lonely.

  
☼☼☼

> Few figures in Fodlan history are shrouded in more mystery—or romance—than Queen Beles, first queen of the Fodlan-Almyra Union. More commonly recognized as the mythological Ruler of Dawn, Queen Beles is best known as a historical figure for her role in ending the Five Year War and unifying the once warring continents of Fodlan and Almrya.
> 
> Prior to her ascension, records of Queen Beles’s life are few and far between. Early dramatizations and ballads depict her as a wandering mercenary, but little physical evidence exists to corroborate this interpretation. In Imperial Year 1180, a commoner named Beles Aisna began employment as a teacher at Garreg Mach’s Officers Academy, a former military institution for young royalty and nobility from the Adrestian Empire, the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus, and the Leicester Alliance. Most scholars accept this as the earliest record of Queen Beles’s existence, as it aligns with her well-documented relationship with King Claude of Almyra, who she first met at Garreg Mach.
> 
> [...]
> 
> **Legacy**  
>  See also: Cultural Depictions of Queen Beles  
>  See also: List of works inspired by Queen Beles
> 
> Of all FAU historical figures, Queen Beles remains among the most influential and beloved, inspiring numerous legends and myths. Her mysterious disappearance after the death of King Claude as well as the unknown location of her tomb and iconic sword still spawn numerous conspiracy theories, many of which draw inspiration from legends about the Ruler of Dawn’s supposed godhood.
> 
> Beles, an old Adrestian word for “beautiful,” has consistently remained in the Top 25 Baby Names list, one of the few names other than Claude that have retained its popularity from that era.

Fodlanpedia. UY 870. “Queen Beles.” Last modified Guardian Moon 15, UY 868. 

  
☼☼☼

  
The Co-op is slow for the last Wednesday afternoon in Horsebow Moon, the kind of slow that fills the air thick as honey. It’s the kind of slow that someone like Claude should be grateful for, should indulge in, but in reality, there’s far too much of it to enjoy before growing sick of it.

Claude mindlessly wipes the fake marble countertop behind the cash register, having already finished wiping the fake marble countertop underneath the espresso machine and the coffee spigots. He considers running a dish towel over the recently washed cups a second time, but even that feels a little bit too much like admitting defeat. On slow days, there’s usually enough to keep himself occupied. Positioned strategically in the main thoroughfare between the university gates, the dorms, and the mess hall, the Co-op is never wanting for interesting characters. Students commuting during the morning pass it on the way to class, and students leaving for home or a night on the town pass it in the afternoon.

But today there is no one. No one but the empty chairs and cafe lights swaying like glass fishing floats in their nets. Even the ever diligent Dimitri, who usually takes care of personal business in the backroom to not “disrupt the customers,” has claimed two of the empty cafe’s tables as his own, his books spread out in neat stacks around his notepad. The irregular sounds of Dimitri’s pencil break up the dull mumble of the half-broken speakers, sharp enough that it’s sudden stop is both welcome and lonely.

“Claude?”

Claude looks up from the register, chin propped in his hand. His friend, hunched over two open books with the defeated wilt of a half-dead sunflower, looks back at him, perplexed.

“Why do some texts say Sword of Dawn while some say Sword of the Creator?”

Claude picks up a pen and twirls it around in his fingers. “It goes back to the secularization of Fodlan,” he explains. “The Sword of the Creator was a Seirosian legend in its own right long before the Ruler of Dawn, and since most people believed she was the reincarnation of the Seirosian creation goddess, they jumped on the idea that the sword she used during the Five Year War was that sword. 

“But at the beginning of the Unification Era, the Queen did everything she could to separate state affairs from the Church of Seiros. Which included trying to debunk those claims. Luckily for her, an opera production dramatizing her life called the ‘Sword of Dawn’ became popular enough for that name to overtake the other. I’m guessing that any texts that refer to it as the Sword of the Creator are either translated from early Unification sources or written by someone with a serious Seirosian bent.” 

Claude notices the uncomprehending tilt to his friend’s head and sighs. “You know, I’ve always been of the opinion that aspiring psychologists should study all these weird cultural references. Never know what a patient’s mind might be picking up.”

Dimitri frowns miserably and flips through a third textbook— _Fodlan’s Myths and Legends_ , it says in curled script—as if seeing many pages at once could speed up the learning process. “I suppose it can help, yes. Really, I was just looking for something to fulfil the elective requirement, and Ashe….”

“Never assume an elective is gonna be easy because your friend’s the TA,” Claude chides with a grin. “Just ask Hilda.”

The other runs a hand through his hair with a groan and pulls it into a half-ponytail. “I don’t suppose you would mind if I went to the library for a moment to work on this paper?”

“Well, I wouldn’t mind, but Edelgard? She was really looking forward to the three of us sharing a shift again.”

“And yet she has been in the back this whole time working on the ledger,” Dimitri grumbles, but nonetheless shifts into a more comfortable position in his seat. It’s predictable in a way that reminds Claude of how fond he actually is of Dimitri’s stubborn loyalty. Of how, if not for said loyalty, there’s be no way he’d make time for two high school friends with such regularity.

Claude pours hot water in a to-go cup and dunks in a bag of chamomile before sealing the lid. Dimitri looks grateful when Claude brings the tea over to him, closing his books before taking the cup with both hands.

“El will have some words with you if she finds out you’re wasting to-go cups on staff instead of using the mugs,” he says, his reprimand tempered by a poorly hidden smile.

“Oh, she wouldn’t dare fire our most popular barista,” Claude replies with a wink. “Apparently we’ve been losing some of our regulars without me.”

“I don’t recall hearing anything like that,” the other mumbles over his cup. “Though it is good to have you back.”

Claude glances at the clock, then back to Dimitri. “If you need to get some fresh air, I can cover you for a bit.”

“What time is it?”

“Two fifty-five. If Edelgard comes out, I’ll tell her you needed a book from the library.”

Dimitri stretches, and an audible crack sounds in the empty room. “I’ll take you up on that offer,” he says with a grimace. “Are you sure you’ll be alright?”

Claude puts a hand to his heart and looks around dramatically. “You’re asking a lot, Mitya. But for you? I’m willing to make that sacrifice.”

He waves at Dimitri as the other ducks out the door, to-go cup in hand. Truth be told, he’s not looking forward to explaining anything to Edelgard should she ask. When it comes to cafe matters, she’s scarier than Lysithea catching a mistake in her professor’s grading. Still, it’s a meager price to pay for having the cafe to himself.

After all, he has other priorities for the afternoon.

Byleth walks through the doorway a little past three o’clock, the same time he had observed her dropping in both yesterday and the day before. Claude watches her through the reflection off the espresso machine, enjoys the way she hesitates when she notices him behind the counter. There’s a flicker of conflict in the way her hand tightens on the door handle, in the way she rocks back onto the leg lingering on the other side of the threshold. But just as Claude expects her to leave, she steels herself, free hand pulling at the strap of the bag slung across her body as if to will it forward, and proceeds through the door. He continues to wipe the counter as if he didn’t hear the door chime, then turns around once she’s a few strides away from the register.

“This is a surprise,” Claude lies, an easy grin on his face. “Fancy meeting you again.”

“Indeed.” Even with her impeccably neutral expression, a trace of annoyance still manages to escape into her voice. “Have you always worked here?”

“Ever since I was a wee freshman. Haven’t been here for the past couple of weeks though, because, well. You know.” He lightly taps a fist against his head. “What can I get you?”

“Hot tea, please.” She places exact change for the purchase on the tray. “To go.”

“You struck me as a coffee person,” Claude admits as he moves to prepare the water. “What type of tea?”

“Do you have Almyran Pine?” She says it so quickly that he’s sure she didn’t bother looking at the menu.

“I may happen to have a secret stash,” Claude replies with a wink. “Go ahead and take a seat. I’ll bring it out to you.” 

Byleth settles at a table by the window and angles herself so that she faces away from the counter. There’s something almost mundane about her in the dim lighting of the Co-op. In the way her dove gray cardigan fits just a little bit tight in the shoulders and how she picks uncomfortably at the overly springy flounce in her skirt. Her silhouette against the yellow brick of the courtyard outside—her back at attention, her hands in her lap—strikes a nostalgic chord, the same way that a lone painting on a museum wall might. Claude thinks of her reflection on the monorail window and clamps down the urge to call out.

When he pours the tea from the Co-op’s rarely-used teapot and brings the to-go cup from the counter to the table, he doesn’t mention that the cafe doesn’t normally sell Almyran Pine. Nor does he mention that he really did brew this cup from his own personal stash of loose leaf. What he does say is, “You have some excellent taste. This tea happens to be my favorite.”

“Is it now?” There’s a strange little half smile on her face as she brings the cup to her lips, one that fades the moment she notices the second cup in Claude’s other hand.

“Hope you don’t mind if I join you,” he says, taking the seat across from her. “As you can see, we aren’t exactly booming with business right now.”

Byleth hums vaguely and sips her tea. It’s the closest to an invitation that he’ll get, so Claude takes it. He leans forward on his elbows, hands clasped around his own cup. 

“How’s the research going?”

“Slow. Seteth’s team doesn’t want to miss anything, and the tomb is very large.” Short. Clipped. An expected answer, if disappointing.

“Well, I suppose it’s not everyday that a team gets a chance to survey the lost tomb of the Ruler of Dawn.”

The woman blows against a trail of steam rising through the lid of her cup. “We haven’t confirmed that yet. Who’s to say that it doesn’t belong to an earlier, undiscovered figure?”

“Suppose it could,” Claude says. “But the Ruler of Dawn was supposedly very attached to Garreg Mach, even after distancing herself from the church. It would make sense for her to be buried here.”

Another vague noise. Byleth drums her fingers on her cup. Claude takes a sip from his. Perhaps that was too forward. He leans back into his seat and tries again.

“Hope you’ve had some time to enjoy yourself, at least. Is this your first time in Garreg Mach?”

“No. I used to visit when I was younger.” 

A pair of students cut a path through the yellow-brick courtyard, dragging a mesh bag filled with soccer balls that bounces with every other step. Byleth’s eyes track them until they disappear up the steps to the mess hall. 

“There used to be a fish pond here,” she says—a statement, not a question. There’s an unexpected wistfulness to it that takes Claude aback.

“The university filled it in about fifteen years ago,” he explains. “They’ve always had problems with students messing with the pond, but then some rival sports team poisoned all the fish after a game and well, that’s as good enough of an excuse as any to get rid of it, I suppose.”

Byleth hums again, and Claude is gripped by the strangest urge to console her for—what?

“My friend tried to name the cafe after the pond once she heard the story.” The words tumble out before he realizes that they’re there. “The _Fishack_ was the furthest she got before we gave up and left it at The Co-op. It’s some sort of bastardization between fish and shack, which doesn’t sound all that appetizing, and to be honest, I still don’t know how to say it correc—“

There’s a sudden sound, like a breeze through a wind chime, and it takes him a moment to recognize it as laughter.

“That’s an awful name,” Byleth manages to say around the slight curl of her lips.

It’s an addictive sound, her laugh. He could listen to it for ages if she’d let him. When he allows himself his own chuckle, the tiny smile he remembers from Seteth’s office graces the woman’s face.

“Your head is doing better, I hope?”

“Much,” Claude says. “Almost as if by magic, really.”

It looks as if she might laugh again, but she doesn’t. “Good. I apologize again for my cousin. He should have never brought you to such a dangerous place.”

“Where’s the fun in that? It was my fault to begin with anyways. Mine and my curious, wandering feet.”

“Is that a common problem?” Byleth asks.

“Very.” 

The corners of her mouth twitch slightly. Good. 

“You know,” she says, “Seteth tells me you’re his best student.”

“You’re pulling my leg.” Byleth’s expression doesn’t falter, but Claude is beginning to realize that’s not much of an indicator of anything. “I’d be flattered if I weren’t so skeptical.”

“It’s the truth,” she insists. “Have you always been interested in archeology?”

”In a way. I came here to major in History. But then I took way too many classes with Seteth and since he’s chair of both departments, I thought, why not both? There’s a lot of overlap between the two. You’re just looking at history in a different way.” 

Memories tug at the back of his mind. Petroglyphs scattered across lava fields on Brigid. The smell of sawdust and myrrh in the back rooms of an Almyran museum. His mother leaning over a desk during her first nights as an ambassador, reading of war and dead men and treasures buried deep in the earth that people still die for. You can’t know truly know how to move forward, she tells him, until you know where you’ve been.

“What about you?” he asks. “What got you started in the field?”

It takes her a second to reply, and when she does, the words come slow and hesitant. “I grew up around the ruins of Shambala. There were always archeologists doing surveys around town. I couldn’t quite avoid it.”

“Homeland of the Ancient Agarthans, huh? Always wanted to visit.”

“It’s nothing special.”

“You’ve been down there?”

“Once or twice.”

“Jealous,” Claude sighs. “So do you mostly do on-site research? Or do you teach like Seteth?”

Byleth’s hands tighten around her cup. “Teach?”

“Yeah. I assumed you’re too young to be a college professor, but maybe a high school teacher?”

A new expression flickers on her face, one that comes and goes as quickly as warm breath on a warm glass. “I’d be an awful instructor,” Byleth says, looking out the window to the courtyard that was once a fish pond. She stands up, not quite meeting Claude’s puzzled gaze. “I’ve been here too long. I have to get back to work.”

Silent panic lurches in his chest. His mind scrambles through the various topics he had prepared for this encounter. Family. Hobbies. Favorite historical period to study. When she’s halfway to the door, he chooses what he thinks is his best chance and flings it into the void.

“You interested in archery at all?”

The woman pauses, turns back to face him. “You shoot?”

“Just a little bit. The team has a match this Saturday, and as Captain, I’ve been tasked by our coach to try and get more butts into seats.” He stamps down on the rabbit-quick pace of his heart so he can pull off his charming wink without a stutter. “How about it?”

Byleth presses her lips into a tight line. Looks down at her cup. “Is the information in a bulletin somewhere?” She asks.

“The match starts at ten in the morning on the lower athletic field. I’m on the line starting from eleven.”

She turns away, and for a moment, Claude comes to terms with the fact that he’ll have to come up with a different strategy the next time he sees her. But then she says, “We’ll see,” and that hope is more than enough.

Dimitri returns as the woman attempts to exit, his hair up in a full ponytail as if he’d gone for a jog. Byleth nearly drops her cup at the sight of him, eyes round in surprise, but maneuvers past his large frame before he can offer to hold the door wider for her.

“Welcome back,” Claude calls out.

His friend continues to stare at Byleth as she hustles away from the Co-op. An uncomfortable feeling rises in Claude’s chest, watching him watching her, but he shoos it away before it can somehow manifest on his face. “She looks familiar,” Dimitri says, tearing his eyes away.

“Who?”

“The woman just now.”

Before Claude can inquire further, the backroom door opens. Edelgard emerges with the ledger tucked under her arm and an empty mug in hand. The single bun she ties her hair into when working hangs uncharacteristically loose, strands of ash brown hair falling messily around her pale face. She frowns at the sight of the empty cafe but, to Claude’s surprise, says nothing when she moves to place the mug in the dishwasher.

“Well look who decided to show up!”

She attempts a smile, but it’s strained. “I’m sorry. It seems like I dozed off. How were things out here?”

“Dozing off on a shift? That’s not like you,” says Dimitri, sidestepping the elephant—or rather, lack of elephant—in the room.

Edelgard sighs, reaching up to retie her bun, which lops awkwardly off to one side. “No, I suppose not. To be honest, I haven’t been getting much sleep lately.”

Claude shoots Dimitri a quick glance and asks, “Is it those nightmares again?”

She nods slowly, as if hesitant to admit it.

“I thought you haven’t had any since we graduated high school.”

“They started up again about a week or so ago. Have you been having yours, Dimitri?”

The man grimaces. “Occasionally. They’ve never really stopped. But it’s never been so bad as to lose sleep over them. At least in college.”

“It’s probably the stress don’t you think?” Claude asks, even as his propensity for speculating in the face of common sense nags him. By the look on Edelgard’s face, she's not quite convinced either. “It’s senior year, you’re a BME taking the most advanced classes, and you’re also running this cafe on top of working at a lab. Seems pretty straightforward.”

This explanation seems to satisfy her. “I suppose you’re right. I’ve been thinking a lot about what to do for this place lately. Ladislava is eager and wants to learn, but I don’t think she realizes just how much work it is to manage a cafe.”

She joins Claude at his table in the seat where Byleth sat, and together the three of them take in the empty cafe in silence. The concrete floor and the eggshell blue seat upholstery. The cedar wall panels that had taken a weekend to install. The fishing-themed baubles mounted on the wall, all painstakingly scavenged from a weekend flea market. Even though she lost the name game, Edelgard had insisted on sticking with the theme.

“Do you remember the night I first told you about starting a co-op?” Edelgard asks suddenly.

“How could we forget?” Dimitri huffs. “You woke us up at two in the morning. I nearly missed class the next day.”

“In hindsight, I’ll admit that the timing wasn’t one of my best decisions.”

“Dimitri’s just upset because he thought you were in trouble. He was this close to breaking down the Black Eagles common room door before I reminded him that freshman cards have cross-dorm access.”

“Claude!” The other man’s face burns a vivid shade of red. Edelgard, graciously, does not comment on it.

“It meant a lot that the two of you came that night,” she says. “I didn’t know what kind of fight to expect from the administration. I needed support, and it was still too early in freshman year for me to really trust anyone except you two.”

“Fear of the admins never stopped you from protesting in high school,” Claude points out.

“That was different. Our high school administrators were spineless. GMU still hasn’t reconsidered the pricing for their meal plans even after I submitted them reports of how our structure is more equitable to students, and nutrition at the mess hall has gotten even more atrocious. The fact that a student-run cafe is doing better than them should be shameful and yet they do nothing.”

“We’re your friends,” Dimitri says. “Of course we would have helped you.”

She throws him a sly side-eye. “If I recall correctly, Dimitri, you were the one who doubted me the most at the beginning.”

Dimitri laughs. “That is true. But you sure showed me quick. You’ve done a lot of good, El.”

Edelgard grows quiet at that. If Claude didn’t know better, he’d say she almost looks shaken.

“I just want to leave behind something good after we graduate,” she says, voice distant. Something in Claude tightens over the weariness on Edelgard’s face. “I want to know that I’ve managed to help people, that I made a difference that lasts.”

_There are things...dreams...that I must see come to fruition._

“Aren’t we too young to think about legacies at this point?” Claude jokes.

Edelgard chuckles. “I suppose I am being abnormally sentimental. It must be the lack of sleep. I’ll text Mercedes and see if she’ll be willing to relieve us a few minutes early.” She brings out her phone and scrolls through for her assistant manager’s number. “You’re lucky not to suffer from your own dreams, Claude. It’s very unpleasant.”

He thinks of Byleth. Of the mysterious hint of her smile and her silhouette against the window. Of her curled up on the throne, shining like starlight, just out of reach.

Claude laughs, shaking the thoughts away. “Well someone’s gotta be awake enough to keep you two in line.”

They leave when Mercedes arrives fifteen minutes early for her shift—“I was just studying in the library anyways,” she insists as Dimitri apologizes for the inconvenience—and take the monorail down into the city as the sky turns purple and pink. They grab their favorite booth at the Gatekeeper Diner—the one in the corner where they can watch the sun sink behind the mountains without it shining in their eyes—and order fries to share.

Over dinner, they talk about everything and nothing. About which of Edelgard’s siblings are going to college next, about whether Dimitri will ask Marianne on a date before the end of the year. Claude manages to redirect them from the topic of “the woman he was chatting up”—“What woman?” Edelgard exclaims at Dimitri’s slip of the tongue—but the look in Edelgard’s eyes when they drop her off at her apartment warns him that she hasn’t forgotten. 

The last thing Claude thinks of as he crawls into his bed is the sight of Byleth leaving the cafe, narrowly avoiding Dimitri in her haste. She had seemed so small looking up at his friend, startled like boat rocked by an unexpected wave. Can’t really blame her, he thinks as his mind drifts. Dimitri’s size could intimidate anyone, even someone like her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally got this up! Thank you all for the kind reactions to my first chapter. I'm a very slow writer with a pretty stressful full time job, but I'll do my best to get something up at least once a month for this fic :)
> 
> I had a lot of fun writing for Byleth and Claude. Also, it's exciting to bring Edelgard and Dimitri into the fic! They will have some plot importance, so please keep an eye out for them.
> 
> Final note: there will be more of those weird historical interludes scattered in the upcoming chapters. I know the Queen Beles versus Byleth thing is confusing, but I swear there's a point to it (and any other historical inaccuracies that may appear).


	3. the archer

Thursday turns to Friday turns to Saturday with little fanfare—lazy and quiet like the rotations of a windmill, grinding each day into tiny granules of time. To Claude, there’s little worse than this feeling of spinning in place. But an expectant energy thrums with each tick of the clock, and it carries him forward through each lecture, each meal, each agonizing bit of small talk that separates him from the weekend.

When he arrives on the lower field Saturday morning, the wind is blowing from the southeast, a gentle autumn sun shining down through a cloudless sky. It’s his first time shooting a competition since his concussion, but muscle memory quickly propels him into a familiar rhythm. Check gear, assemble equipment, adjust sights, breathe. He empties his mind easily by the time the match starts, but each time he walks back from scoring and collecting his arrows, his eyes scan the field for that flash of pale green.

Only after the start of the ladies match does he spot Byleth, hiding in the grove of pine trees behind the spectators’ area. Her eyes fix on him the moment he breaks away from his cheering teammates, and once again under the scrutiny of her gaze, he feels exposed—a rabbit crossing an open field. His quiver, still hanging from the belt on his waist, rattles loudly with each step.

“I didn’t see you show up,” he says when he draws close.

“Thought I’d surprise you,” she replies, expression flat. “You know, like how you surprised me in the cafe.”

Claude laughs, scratching at a spot behind his neck. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Come sit up front. They’re just about to finish this match.”

He brings her to the team’s pop-up canopy and offers a camping chair with a flourish. Byleth gives him a vaguely skeptical look before sitting down, the dusty fabric crinkling loudly under her weight. Today she’s in a gray hoodie and black capris—the most comfortable he’s ever seen her. 

“You weren’t exaggerating about your spectator count,” she says, gesturing around them. Under the canopy, there is a snack table and a pile of the team’s backpacks thrown underneath. A smattering of open camper chairs, only three of which are occupied by spectators. Of those three, two hunch over laptops with their brightness turned to high, too preoccupied with homework to be aware of anything else around them.

Claude sighs, taking a seat of his own. “No one likes coming all the way down to the lower field. See?” He points to the monastery rampart that lines the edge of the field, rising several stories tall and blocking all but the tallest buildings from view. At the top, a few curious heads poke out to see what the commotion is below. “To be fair, this is just a small match with a neighboring school. A lot of students make it out for the larger tournaments.”

“But that’s not what the people making the budgets care about,” says a voice as dry as desert sand. Shamir scratches away at her clipboard as she wanders into the tent, the furrow of her brow mirroring the razor-sharp slope of her bob. “Claude, I moved Cyril into your spot for the men’s team match so you can focus on the individual.”

“What, you don’t think I can handle two matches in a row?”

His coach almost chuckles. “I’m sure anyone who can shoot a 667 half round after a few weeks off is perfectly fine for a matchplay or two, but I’m not taking any chances. Besides, Cyril needs more practice in a tournament format.” She offers her hand to Byleth, who takes it readily. “Sorry for butting in. I’m Shamir, the team’s coach. And you are?”

“Byleth.” Claude is stunned by the small smile that easily crosses the woman’s face as she shakes his coach’s hand. “I work with Claude’s advisor, Seteth.”

The two of them exchange pleasantries for a few moments, talking of the weather and the team and all sorts of other things not worth the effort of eavesdropping into. He listens anyway, struck by the pleasant lilt in Byleth’s voice. Even if it’s just the vague pleasantness of small talk, it’s more than the tightlipped neutrality she usually offers him. 

Eventually someone on the shooting line calls out for Shamir, who waves a hand over her shoulder to indicate that she heard him. “Time to actually be a coach. You can rest in the spectator tent, Claude, but don’t get distracted. Nice meeting you, Byleth.”

Shamir’s smirk is insufferably smug, and Claude’s not sure whether he prefers it to her normal deadpan glare. Luckily, Byleth is too preoccupied with eyeing the lineup of bows, which glitter like jeweled birds fanning their wings in the sun.

“What is a matchplay?” she asks.

“A competition format, same as the one that just finished.” He hands her a set of binoculars for watching the target. “The men’s team is starting now, so you’ll see.”

Ashe takes the lineup first. He raises his bow, the pearl gray sheen of its limbs catching the sun. Holds, then releases. The moment his arrow hits the mark, he moves out of the way for Ignatz, who quickly takes the same position. After Ignatz is Cyril, then after Cyril, it’s the other team, cycling through their three archers at a blistering pace of two minutes per person. Byleth watches in rapt fascination, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees. 

“Exciting, isn’t it?

Byleth nods. “It’s different than the tournaments I’m used to.”

He lifts a water bottle to his lips. “How so?”

“For starters, the competitors were usually shooting at each other.”

Claude sputters. “You’re joking, right?”

The corner of Byleth’s mouth twitches.

She moves on to other topics, not elaborating even as Claude pesters her for details. She asks for a play by play of the match. Asks questions about the bows and their various attachments. They talk about Ashe—

(“His form is good,” Byleth observes, “but he’s fatigued.”

“Ashe is pretty consistent,” Claude explains, “but his endurance isn’t the greatest. Good temperament though. Doesn’t get down on himself often.”)

—and Ignatz,

(“He lacks confidence.”

“That obvious, huh?”

“It affects his shots, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, but when Ignatz manages to jump over that mental block, I’d say his accuracy is even better than mine.”

_Thwump_ , goes Ignatz’s arrow. A ten, if Leonie’s whoop is anything to go by.)

—and Cyril. 

(“He’s good for a second year.”

“Cyril was on his high school archery team, so he actually shoots better than some of our juniors and seniors.”

“He’s impatient, though,” Byleth mutters, frustration palpable in a way that almost makes Claude double-take. “He should know better.”)

There’s a part of Claude that itches to dig into deeper conversation, but the match is all she talks about. It’s the safe topic, he knows—one that can keep her talking without giving up anything behind the mask—and sure enough, her questions about the match keep coming well after the last arrows have been shot.

“You’re up, Claude,” calls Leonie from the competitor’s area. She blinks in confusion when she notices Byleth, but thankfully chooses to help Ignatz break down his equipment instead of coming over.

“Is the format going to be the same as the last match?” Byleth asks as he rises from his seat. 

“Pretty much. Except it’s just me and the other dude, so it’ll go quick.” He adjusts his chest and arm guards, then winks. “Wish me luck?”

“Do you need it?” Byleth asks, sharp and clinical.

At the waiting line, Claude sizes up the seventy meters between him and the target, taps the tip of his stabilizer on the ground three times out of habit. The bow is a familiar weight in his hands, still warm from the sun growing hot overhead.

Shamir blows her whistle—archers to the shooting line.

When Claude steps forward, he leaves everything behind him. The buzz of his teammates, the determination on his competitor’s face. Even the feeling of Byleth’s gaze boring heavily into his back. On the field, there is only the arrow between his fingertips, the slight tension of the bowstring when he nocks the arrow into place. At Shamir’s second whistle, he raises his bow and draws, pulling back the string until it kisses his face, until the weight of the draw shifts to his back and his shoulder blades strain to meet at the center of his back. Pulling, pulling, pulling.

The wind stills. His teammates grow quiet behind him. In the second before the shot, he feels blissfully at ease.

At the snap of his clicker plate, he relaxes his fingers and lets go.

☼☼☼

> [...]
> 
> In the year before his wedding to Queen Beles, King Claude of Almyra arranged for an exhibit of Almyran and Fodlan artifacts, paintings, and handicrafts to travel with a mixed delegation from their soon-to-be combined courts. Seen in villages across Almyra and Fodlan, the exhibit aimed to acquaint commoners to their neighboring country’s culture and introduce the new ruling couple.
> 
> One such painting was contributed by an unknown Almyran artist, one who likely visited Fodlan as a member of Claude’s first delegation. Commonly known as _The Archer_ , the painting depicts a royal hunt in a nondescript pine forest off the coast of Derdriu. Stylized in an Almyran interpretation of Seirosian scrollwork, Beles and Claude give chase to a monstrous beast atop a pair of wyverns, while a hunting party of both Fodlani and Almryans block the beast’s escape.
> 
> Although hunts were a common subject in the Imperial Era, _The Archer_ stands as a landmark in Early Unification art for several reasons. First, it was one of the earliest depictions of Fodlani and Almyrans cooperating after the Battle of Derdriu. Second, the application of Almyran techniques to Seirosian aesthetics sparked an interest and rise in similar hybrid styles. But perhaps more importantly, The Archer is one of the most well-preserved examples of the early techniques used by the court to endear unification to its subjects.
> 
> Note the positions of the King and Queen. A heavenly light shines down on Beles, who stands mid-center with her arrow drawn and pointed at the beast, while Claude holds up a hunting horn, preparing to signal their hunt’s approaching end. Here, Beles is framed as the painting’s primary protagonist. To the medieval Almyran, the bow and wyvern link the Queen’s battle prowess to that of their finest warriors, the Barbarossa—a direct challenge to Almyran stereotypes of Fodlani as cowardly. The fact that the Queen was reportedly weak at both disciplines only underscores the intentionality behind the artist’s work.
> 
> Meanwhile, the more humble position of Claude softens him, challenging not the Almyrans but the Fodlani who viewed them as a brutish, violent people. It would be easy to mistake King Claude’s passiveness as a depiction of inferiority, but the presence of the hunting horn, the tool of the Hunt Master, marks him as the tactical authority of the hunt. In this venture, the Queen and King—Fodlani and Almyran—are equals, accomplished hunters working to fell their target.

Luvec, M. “Dawn of the FAU.” UY 861. _Art as Politics: Recrafting Nations and Identities._ Derdriu, Leicester: Goneril Institute of Art.

☼☼☼

“No way, she really said that?”

Claude takes a loud sip from the dregs of his milkshake. Byleth, sitting across from him at the table, cocks her head at Ashe’s question, curious.

“Ms. Shamir seemed enthused by the idea of me taking her coach position, yes. I politely declined.”

Not even the chatter of the Gatekeeper Diner’s late-afternoon crowd can muffle the bark of Leonie’s laugh. “Well after how you chewed out Claude in front of everyone, I’m not surprised. I’ve never seen anyone give a lecture as good as Coach does!”

“I won the match, didn’t I?” Claude tries, grabbing a half-soggy fry from the basket on the table.

Byleth’s frown turns on him almost immediately. “You got cocky toward the end. Your follow through during the last set was sloppy, and twirling that last arrow was bad sportsmanship.”

“That’s what you get when you try too hard to show off.” Leonie teases, to which Claude responds with the loosest grin he can manage.

“What’s the point if you can’t have fun every now and again?”

For not the first time that afternoon, Claude thinks that it would’ve been better to let Byleth decline the invite to the post-match snack run. Ashe had suggested it, and Claude had encouraged it, if only to enjoy the sight of Byleth dodging questions from someone other than himself. But as soon as it was apparent that Byleth would give up nothing of substance to his teammates, all questions quickly turned to Claude.

Annoying inquiries aside, he has learned more about Byleth than he expected to in these past few hours. She can flip from emotionless doll to perfectly pleasant at the tip of a hat. She’s knowledgeable about archery, more so than she lets on. She’s apparently never had a milkshake in her life, and the gleam in her eyes after biting into a beer-battered fish filet puts her wistfulness over the monastery’s fish pond in a new light. When she listens, people talk as if they’re spilling out their deepest secrets, and she never says anything other than a quick comment or question that encourages them to share more. Of the team members who joined them, only Leonie, Ashe, and Ignatz remain, and he suspects from the stars in their eyes that they’ve stayed for Byleth more so than for the team.

After Byleth and Leonie leave for a bathroom break (“Walk through your critique on my shot sequence again,” he hears Leonie say to Byleth as they disappear through the door), Claude rummages in his bag and passes the textbook that he borrowed across the table to Ignatz. His housemate looks at it, then blinks in confusion.  
  
“Have you been carrying this in your backpack the whole time?”

“You’ve seen all the books in my room. If I left this in there, we’d never see it again.”

Ignatz grimaces, sliding the _Art as Politics_ textbook into his messenger bag. “Good point. Did you find what you were looking for?”

“Ah, not quite. But I did pick up some great trivia. Did you know that realistic portraiture didn’t become mainstream in the FAU until after the first Unification century?”

“The more stylistic Seirosian form was still transitioning out of favor at the time, after all,” Ignatz muses. “A lot of nobles commissioned realistic portraits for their families, but most of those pieces are in private collections.”

Claude sighs, stuffing another fry into his mouth. Of the many theories about Byleth floating around in his head, a royal portrait would address most of them. But short of breaking into the royal palace at Fodlan’s Locket, there’d be no more leads from that angle. Back to the drawing board, it seems.

There’s a sudden flurry of rustling at the other end of the booth, then an avalanche of papers and books spilling across the table. “Oh, no,” Ashe mutters, sorting through his things. His face pales when he turns to Ignatz and Claude.“This can’t be happening.”

“What’s going on?” Leonie asks as she and Byleth slide back into their seats, careful not to disturb the mess.

“I left all my textbooks in my equipment bag at the range.”

Claude frowns. “Tomorrow’s Sunday. Can’t you just go pick them up then?”

“I’m teaching a weekend remedial session for my advisor first thing in the morning. All my notes on the students, the lesson plan. It’s all in there.”

Ah. Now that’s a predicament.

“Can’t you just whip something up real quick?” Leonie looks incredulous. “I thought that’s what all TAs do for their lesson plans.”

“Sometimes,” both Claude and Byleth say at once. Claude looks to Byleth, startled. Byleth quietly fiddles with one of Ashe’s pens, avoiding his gaze.

“Not for a remedial session,” Ashe protests. “I spent a whole week customizing for these students. It’s not fair to do that to them.”

“Then let’s go.” Claude leans forward on his elbows and drops his voice into an exaggerated, conspiratorial whisper. “I’ve left stuff behind in the range and retrieved it before. It’s way too early for campus security to be patrolling, and I’ve got a set of keys.”

Barely restrained jealousy curls Leonie’s lips into a tight frown. “Since when did Coach give you something like that?” 

“Since she started doing Friday happy hours with the hockey coach last year.” He jingles the keys in his hand before hopping out of the booth. “Someone’s gotta open the doors if she’s hungover for Saturday practice.”

They take the monorail back into campus as the sun sets over the mountains—Ignatz, out of concern for Ashe. Claude, out of duty for suggesting their excursion in the first place. Leonie bows out at their home station, citing homework that needs to be finished, but oddly enough, Byleth opts to come along the whole way.

“I have business with Seteth,” she explains. Knowing how late his advisor toils through the night, Claude grudgingly accepts this at face value.

After exiting the campus station, Claude leads them around the station walls until they reach a dirt path blocked by two swing barriers. A newly mounted sign glimmers in the moonlight—“No Trespassing After Dark.” He motions for the group to ignore it, then vaults over the barrier with barely a second glance. The others follow suit quickly and shuffle onwards.

“You promise not to tell Professor Cichol that we did this?” Ashe whispers nervously to Byleth, who mimes sewing her mouth shut.

Groves of thick pine trees flank either side of their path, thin rays of moonlight threading through their branches like curious fingers peeking through window shades. “I never realized how creepy this place is at night.” Ignatz says with a shiver, looking up as if waiting for something to swoop overhead.

“Yeah, no kidding,” mutters Claude with a low whistle. “You know, I’ve heard stories about this part of campus being particularly haunted.”

“Claude—” Byleth whispers sharply just as Ashe gulps.

“H-haunted?”

“Garreg Mach’s a pretty old place, and lots of battles happened on the grounds. Wouldn’t be surprised to find some spooky ghosts wandering here, really.” Claude sneaks a peek toward Byleth’s direction and finds her staring back at him, the light of Ignatz’s phone flashlight casting odd shadows across her face.

After fifteen minutes of walking, the pine grove ends. Moonlight bathes the lower field in a dim, silvery light, the matted grass where they staked their canopies and paced between shooting line and target now shining like dull runes in the dirt. Behind him, someone sighs in wonder, and Claude tries to guess if it’s Ignatz, visualizing a new painting, or Ashe, recalling some obscure fable he read in class.

(It’s Ignatz, which he discovers when the boy falls behind to sketch the scene in his pocketbook.)

The indoor range sits at the field’s far edge, a narrow, windowless building just big enough for five or so target lanes and a locked cage for everyone’s equipment. Claude rummages around in his bag for his keys as they approach the door, but his fingers bump up against only books, empty snack wrappers, and the occasional sharp end of a pencil.

“You know, I swear I just had them.”

Ashe jumps up and down. “Oh, let me! I’ve always wanted to try this in real life. Ignatz, if you could shine your phone light here...”

The pale-haired boy kneels down and produces what looks like a pocket knife from his bag. But rather than a knife, out pops several thin pieces of metal, all of varying shapes at their ends. Ashe chooses one after closely inspecting the dead bolt, then carefully sticks it into the keyhole alongside a separate metal rod. 

“Where did you learn to pick locks?” Byleth asks, a cautious edge to her voice.

“From a book that I bought from a fair in elementary school!” Ashe practically glows with excitement. “My dad got mad at me picking open all the locks in the house, so he bought me a bunch of locks to practice on. He still sends me some new ones from time to time, just to keep my skills sharp.”

Byleth’s smile is surprisingly soft in the glow of the phone light. “Sounds like you had a fun childhood.”

The tumbler clicks open just as Claude fishes the keys from his bag. Ashe slips into the range, still rambling about his childhood antics to Byleth, who follows closely behind. Perhaps it’s the pleasant night wind on his face or the unsettled feeling in his chest, but suddenly Claude feels very keen to stay outside. No point in crowding the building, he tells himself, even as his mind mulls on Byleth’s gentleness with Ashe. Her easy small talk with Shamir. None of those blank and distant looks that he’s gotten used to seeing.

_What are they doing to make Byleth more open around them?_

“Miss Byleth seems like an interesting person,” Ignatz remarks, still sketching in his tiny pocketbook.

“Oh, she’s something alright.” Claude leans against the doorframe and crosses his arms, catching himself before his frustration breaks through. “You seem to like her quite a bit, though. Tell me, who do you think is prettier—Doctor Flayn or Byleth?”

Ignatz’s face grows red. “Claude! I’ve literally just met her.”

“Sorry, Ignatz. Couldn’t resist.”

“Besides, she’s much more interested in you, don’t you think?”

“What do you mean?”

“She keeps looking at you whenever your back is turned.” Ignatz’s eyes go round behind his glasses. “You really haven’t noticed?”

Of course he’s noticed. She’s been watching him ever since they met, though he still doesn’t understand why. Claude doesn’t say this, however. Rather, he fixates on a flicker of light at the far edge of the pine grove. He waits for it to disappear, but instead it grows stronger, widening at a pace that can only indicate one thing. 

“Why is the campus security down here so early? It’s barely even seven o’clock.”

Ignatz squints into the darkness. “I think Hilda was talking about this yesterday. The university has been catching people trying to sneak into campus through the lower field these past few weeks. Journalists, conspiracy theorists—most of them were trying to investigate the tomb. Maybe they’ve upped the patrol amount?”

The door behind Claude opens. Instinctively, he grabs Ashe’s wrist before the other can raise his phone flashlight higher, then puts a finger up to his lips. In the white glare of the moonlight, the other’s face pales, the freckles on his face dark like pebbles in snow.

“Campus security?” Ashe asks, hastily stuffing his newly retrieved materials into his bag. Claude nods.

“We can’t get in that much trouble, right?” Ignatz whispers nervously as he kills his own phone light. “We’re students, we have a right to be on campus.”

“I’ve known people to get in trouble for lesser things,” Claude admits. But, no. That’s not why he’s feeling so off. There’s something else that’s tying his stomach into a knot. Something even more concerning than Ignatz’s parents chewing him out or Ashe getting in trouble with his scholarship organization because of a mark on his behavioral record.

Claude looks to Byleth.

“You wouldn’t happen to have a school ID, would you?”

“No.”

“Any ID at all?”

The woman’s expression hardens as the issue dawns on her. “Not with me.”

_Of course she doesn’t._

Claude’s mind races. Two distant beams of light directly parallel to each other sweep through the tree trunks. A golf cart, then. It’ll have to stick to the dirt paths, and it’s not big enough to have more than one campus security guard at its helm. With the current cloud cover, anyone on this side of the field could sneak away from the range undetected, so long as they moved quickly.

“Ignatz, do you remember the gap in the fence that you found on the other side of this pine grove?”

“The one you got stuck in when—”

“Yeah, but you and Ashe should fit through fine. It’s dark on that end and the pine needles should muffle your steps. I’ll try to sneak Byleth up the nearest tower and get her to Seteth’s office.”

“Can’t we just hide in the range?” Byleth asks, looking vaguely displeased about the whole thing.

Claude winces. “Last time I was unlucky enough to try and wait out security in there, I ended up staying the whole night. The no windows thing makes it pretty hard to figure out when they leave.”

“I’m sorry,” Ashe whispers frantically before slipping into the dark with a determined Ignatz. Once the two are behind the safety of the trees, Claude locks the range door behind him and motions for Byleth to follow. They hug the rampart wall in the opposite direction, then slip into the pine grove opposite from where they came. Behind them, the sound of a puttering golf cart echoes across the empty field. 

The gate into the nearest tower is locked, but before Claude can suggest moving on to the next, Byleth produces Ashe’s multipick tool from her pocket.

“He gave this to me and forgot to take it back,” is her explanation as she works her way through the padlock.

“And where did _you_ learn how to lockpick?”

“From a friend.”

The iron gate creaks loudly as it opens, enough so that even Byleth’s attempts to make it inside and reset the padlock are tinged with panic. Still, the sounds of the golf cart remain faint and distant, and after a few minutes of carefully paced walking, they can hear nothing at all from the outside. 

After they’re far enough up the tower, Claude unlocks his phone to turn on its flashlight. Made it out! reads a text notification on his screen. You two okay?

“Sounds like Ignatz and Ashe are safe,” he says before shooting a message back.

“Good.” The relief in Byleth’s voice is restrained, but noticeable.

They continue upward in a spiral. The stone beneath their feet is uneven, each step narrower than the next. The higher up they go, the closer the walls seem to press up against them, and at one particular choke point, Claude needs to angle his shoulders just a little bit to get through.

“How did you get stuck in the range that one night?” asks Byleth, suddenly. An attempt, Claude guesses, to keep their focus off the miserable circumstances.

“Oh, it’s a long story.”

“It’s a tall tower.”

“Well, if you insist,” Claude chuckles. “In freshman and sophomore year, I snuck into the range a lot outside of practice. Archery’s been a meditative tool for me since I was a kid, so whenever I needed time to think, I’d come and shoot for a bit. 

“The night I got stuck in the range was one of those times. The guard parked his cart outside the range, probably taking a smoke or something, and I fell asleep with my ear against the door, waiting for him to leave. Coach found me in the morning. But instead of reporting me, she told me if I won them the next couple of tournaments and became team captain in junior year, she’d give me the spare keys to come practice by myself between classes instead of at night.”

“So the hangover story is a lie?”

“Oh no, that’s still true. Coach Catherine can get pretty wild. Shamir goes with her to make sure she doesn’t cause trouble, but even she can be human sometimes.”

The woman laughs—that rare, bright sound which Claude still remembers from the cafe. A smile of his own creeps onto his face, and for the first time that day, he thinks that he’s finally made her relax.

“I-is somebody down there?”

Both of them freeze where they stand. Just above them, a flashlight beam flickers. Heavy footsteps pace back and forth, as if hesitant to go any further into the dark.

A pair of strong arms wrap around Claude’s waist and pull him down onto the steps. Knees knock into someone else’s knees, elbows slam hard on the edge of a stair. He swallows his shout when he realizes that it’s Byleth underneath him, green eyes flashing in warning.

“Follow my lead,” Byleth whispers. Calmly. As if the fact that their limbs are all tangled in each other and their bodies are scrunched up in a tight space doesn’t affect her at all. He’d be close enough to hear her heartbeat, if not for the blood pounding loudly in his ears.

The footsteps suddenly become frantic and heavy, echoing loudly against the stone before a pair of large boots appear on the steps at Claude’s eye level.

“Alois.” Claude feels Byleth relax underneath him. “I thought that was your voice.”

Alois is a bulky man with wide shoulders and a dad mustache several decades out of style. Given the comically startled look on the man’s face, it takes Claude a moment to recognize him as the boisterous guard who greets students at the main gate during the afternoons. “What are you doing down here, Miss Byleth?” Alois asks, surprised.

“I asked Seteth’s advisee for a tour of the campus. The tower seemed interesting so we popped in for a look, but then Claude suddenly slipped…”

“I know you!” Alois shines the flashlight onto Claude’s face. “I helped Professor Cichol call the ambulance when you were unconscious down in the catacombs.”

Byleth looks expectantly at Claude. Ah, so that’s where she’s going with this.

“Yeah, still recovering from that a bit,” Claude says, feigning a wince. “Thanks for saving me from death by stairs, Byleth. Didn’t mean to get all woozy on you.”

The woman shakes her head and gives Alois a somewhat helpless look. “I don’t suppose you can assist, Alois?”

“Sure thing! Alright kid, hang on tight.” It takes a moment for the heavier man to maneuver his way in the narrow staircase, but eventually, he manages to get Claude’s arm up over his shoulder. When they make it out of the tower, Claude peers over the top of the rampart and spots the golf cart parked outside of the range below, the light of a cigarette a faint dot of red in the darkness.

“Sure you don’t need me to take you to a nearby hospital?” The man asks when he drops them off at the entrance hall.

Claude shrugs. “Nah, I’ll be alright. I’ll just stop by the health center tomorrow if I need it.”

“If you say so, kid.” Alois claps a supportive hand on Claude’s shoulder. “By the way, all rampart towers are supposed to be off limits now that we’ve got weirdos trying to sneak into campus. But since you were probably out of commission during that announcement, I’ll let it slide.”

Relief loosens the hands curled tight in his pockets. “Gotcha. Much appreciated, sir.”

As he walks away, Alois leans next to Byleth’s ear and whispers—or rather, attempts to whisper in his booming voice, “You know, Miss Byleth, I promise I won’t tell the Professor about your romantic stroll with his student. Your secret’s safe with me.”

“Excuse me?” The shock on Byleth’s normally composed face is so comical that it takes all of Claude’s self-control to not laugh.

The man flashes Byleth a thumbs up, then wanders off to resume his patrol. Byleth walks briskly in the opposite direction, and Claude nearly stumbles up another flight of stairs trying to catch up to her. Her face is still tinged pink when he does.

“You knew he’d buy our excuse,” he observes, impressed.

“Alois is very trusting for a security guard.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt that. But if I didn't know better, I’d even say you knew that he was the one who helped me that day.”

The woman gives him a look, aggressively blank save for the faintest tinge of annoyance. “That’s quite the stretch.”

Claude stops walking. 

“Hey.” The words come before he can stop himself. “The aloof and mysterious vibe you’re going for here is fun and all, but if I did something to upset you, it’d be really nice to know.”

Byleth slows to a halt, confusion registering on her normally impassable face. “You haven’t upset me.”

He thinks of the phone light landing softly on her smile for Ashe, her pleasant neutrality with everyone but him, and his lips quirk upward in a frustrated smile, lazy and slow. “Coulda fooled me.”

“Byleth? Mr. Nasim?”

Seteth approaches from the other end of the monastery entrance hall, a stack of papers under one arm and a leather folio in the other. His eyes dart back and forth between the two, measuring the distance between them with the scrutiny of a high school dance chaperone.

“Hey there, Seteth,” Claude says, quickly shifting to loose grin. “I see you’re working late as always. Wanna join the campus tour I’ve been giving Byleth?”

“I will pass. Thank you for extending your hospitality to my cousin.” His advisor gives the woman a disapproving look. “Byleth, the team is wrapping up their research for the night. Could you come with me to assist them?”

The woman bristles at the other’s order, but beyond the flash of ice in her green eyes, she ultimately doesn’t protest.

“Have a good evening,” she says to Claude.

“Nice hanging with you,” Claude replies.

Before Seteth follows Byleth out of the hall, he says, “I would like you to my office on Monday during office hours, Claude. There is something important that we need to discuss.” The edge in his advisor’s voice is so ambiguous that Claude can’t tell if it’s directed toward him or someone else.

A chill goes down Claude’s spine. “I’ll be there.”

  
☼☼☼

Seteth’s office is stuffy in the mid-Monday warmth, a stubborn reminder that the last pleasant weather of the year is due to pass at any moment. Given the poor air circulation in the older parts of the monastery, it’s a well known fact to never schedule an afternoon meeting with Seteth until the leaves turn color. But there was something about the man on Saturday night that made Claude reluctant to skip on this particular appointment.

He fiddles with a pen as his advisor props open a window and scans the bookshelf behind Seteth’s desk out of habit. Today, the shelves have many vacancies, the books that left them so disparate in topic, country and era that Claude struggles to find a pattern. The books in question sit on a small table in the corner, where a small, dark gray cardigan is draped over the chair.

“Byleth told me you did well on your match this Saturday,” says Seteth as he returns to his desk. He places a cup of tea in front of Claude before moving to take his own seat. “I imagine it must have taken you extra practice to get ready for competition.”

“Not any more than usual. Once you get the rhythm back, most of the rust shakes off on its own.”

Claude brings the cup to his lips and is taken aback by the warm taste of Almyran Pine. Seteth is not the type of person to intentionally stock his cabinet with his students’ favorites.

“Now, you should know why you’re here, Claude.”

“Enlighten me, Seteth. Is it about my post-graduation plans again?”

“Not quite.”

“Lesson plans for my section?”

“I have no complaints regarding those.” They stare at each other expectantly, waiting for the other to elaborate. After a few moments of silence, Seteth breaks first. “Have you solidified your senior thesis topic?”

Claude winces. 

“I have been holding off on pushing you since you were still recovering. But now that you seem well enough to engage in extracurriculars, I believe it is time to get back on track. I assume you have not forgotten?”

He watches Seteth pull out a file with his name, then the worksheet of possible topics they had brainstormed a year ago in this very office. The amount of writing on the page astounds Claude, and for a moment, he wonders if there is secretly another Claude under Seteth’s wing, if the file in front of him is really his and not someone else’s.

“What’s the point of an undergraduate thesis, Seteth?” Claude asks, leaning back into his chair. “Undergraduates don’t have the resources or time to substantially contribute to any body of knowledge. It’s nothing more than a glorified lit review, if you think about it.”

“It is supposed to be a demonstration of all that you’ve learned here at this university. But pedagogical reasons aside, the point is that you opted into this last year. A substantial part of your remaining credits depend on your thesis.” The man smiles, unnervingly proud. “Besides, I believe that someone of your skill would produce a fine piece of work, undergraduate or not.”

_Seteth tells me you’re his best student._

Claude shifts in his seat. Swishes his tea around in its cup. “I’m touched by your faith in me. Really.”

“Is there anything the matter?”

Memories stir. A long, dreamlike hallway. Celebrations, music. To our futures, to Claude.

“What if I were to tell you that I honestly can’t decide on a topic?”

“Shall we go over this worksheet then?” The paper is pushed to Claude’s side of the table, the scribbles—Claude’s scribbles—so illegible that they seem like a different language entirely. “A few of these are excellent starting points, you know.”

“Ah, I’m not really feeling those to be honest.”

A puzzled look crosses his advisor’s face. ”Pardon?”

“I’m just not really passionate about those topics anymore,” Claude sighs loudly, staring up at the ceiling. “Nothing’s really grabbing my attention, you know?”

Seteth removes his glasses and tightly pinches the bridge of his nose. “Your thesis is not necessarily about passion, Claude. All you need is something reasonable that you’d be able to complete in a year’s time.”

“Ah, but doesn’t that bring the purpose of the undergraduate thesis back into question?” Claude leans forward, ready for debate. “Should we really teach our students that any topic would suffice for what is supposed to be the culmination of their university experience? Shouldn’t we teach them to chase their dreams no matter how bold or outlandish? Or perhaps, the premise of wrapping up such a large, messy, exciting time in such a neat bow is flawed to begin with, that—”

“You realize,” says his advisor loudly, “that you will be unable to graduate with your friends unless you complete this?”

At that moment, Claude feels, very keenly, the press of the chair’s arms against the side of his thigh. The blood pulsing in his ears, his mind going white hot for just one quick second. The ceiling fan clicks like a revolver overhead as it struggles to push the muggy air around it. 

Claude flexes his steepled fingers, presses them together tightly, and grins.

“Just keeping you on your toes, Seteth. I’ll get a proposal to you by the deadline, don’t worry.”

Seteth looks at him—really, really looks at him—then leans back into his chair with a disappointed shake of his head. “See that you do.”

“May I leave now?”

“Of course.”

Claude places the half-empty cup of tea on his advisor’s desk and hurries his way to the door. Byleth is there when he opens it, back in her not-quite-fitted blazer. Her green eyes are wide with inquiry, and for once, he can’t muster the energy to challenge them. Before she can say anything, he simply smiles and trudges his way onward to home.

  
☼☼☼

Over the course of the night, he is awake to hear the grandfather clock in the Golden Deer’s living room toll at least thrice. Even in the attic, Claude can feel the ringing in his bones, how it travels through the mattress then up his spine and into the wall behind his head. When he eventually decides to roll out of bed instead of staring bleary-eyed at the ceiling, the clock tolls for the five o’clock hour. 

A still mist lingers over the city as he rides monorail into the campus station and shuffles his way into lower field. Cigarette butts litter the front entrance of the indoor range. Inside, Ashe’s fumbling is preserved in the fine layer of dust and dirt on the concrete floors. Claude sets himself up at the shooting line and puts together his gear and his bow. He shoots one arrow, then a second, then a third.

The indoor fluorescents flicker when the range door opens, just as they always do. But when he puts down his bow, it is Byleth who’s standing at the threshold, clutching the bag slung across her chest.

Claude is too tired to be surprised.

“I saw you get off at the station,” she says. “May I watch?”

“Be my guest.” He adjusts his quiver, pulls out another arrow to nock on the bowstring “Is Seteth on campus too?”

She waits until he finishes his shot to reply. “I don’t know. I’m staying with his sister so we commute separately.”

Claude braces himself for the inevitable question about his meeting with Seteth, but Byleth simply sets down her bag and gestures to his equipment.

“Can you explain all this to me again?”

He grins in relief. “Sure.”

He hands her his bow and walks her through each piece. The clicker plate, then the plunger. The stabilizers, sticking straight out from the front of the bow. He shows her how the sights work, explains the importance of the t-gauge hanging from his quiver. They debate the need for finger slings and finger tabs, which Byleth refuses to use when he allows her to shoot one arrow with his bow. Her shot lands solidly in the seven ring, a little high and off to the left.

“This all seems impractical,” she says as she returns the bow to him. “This equipment would get in the way during real combat.”

“We haven’t used bows in combat for centuries,” Claude replies, gently. “There hasn’t been a need for it.”

“Oh.” A flash of vulnerability comes and goes on Byleth’s face, as if she had looked down thinking she was elsewhere and suddenly looked up to find herself here, lost. “Of course,” she says, firmly. “I don’t know what I was thinking.” The woman turns to inspect the showcase of photos and trophies behind them, and in the stiff line of her shoulders, there is a melancholy that gives Claude pause. Even with her obvious slip-up, he can’t bring himself to point it out.

He places his bow on its stand and takes a seat on the bench behind him.

“I guess you’re wondering what happened with me and Seteth yesterday,” Claude says.

“I heard a little bit.” Byleth picks up a picture from the showcase—a group photo from his sophomore year. In it, Claude sits front and center, the first-place trophy shining brightly in the circle of his crossed legs. “You don’t seem like the kind of person who’d lose passion in something easily,” she says.

“That’s quite the compliment,” he chuckles. He seeks out her reaction, but once again her face is turned away, hidden by the sea green fall of her hair.

Once when he was six and visiting family for the holidays, his Uncle Nader took him fishing atop Almyra’s Enlil River. He watched in awe as the man reeled in one big fish after another—barbel and carp and all sorts of other fish he still can’t name. At the time, he had just been given his first toy bow, a small plastic thing with orange suction cup arrows that had broken at least one vase the week before, and in the height of his obsession, he asked his uncle whether a bow could be used more effectively instead of a reel.

“Bow fishing’s tricky, kid. Sure it’s more exciting. But you gotta see a target, and then you gotta make sure you actually hit it. Otherwise, you scare it and everything else away. With murky waters like this, a line, good bait, and some patience do best. Besides,” his uncle added as he reeled in another monster from the deep. “The big ones love it when the bait struggles a bit.”

It’s an odd memory to recall here in this long, windowless box of a building, several feet away from perhaps one of the most infuriatingly mysterious people he’s ever met. But in it, Claude finds startling clarity. The failure of his probing. The smile at Ashe’s story. Perhaps he’s been approaching it from the wrong angle all along. He turns a new strategy over and over in his head until, finally, he knows what needs to be done.

He turns to Byleth and puts himself on the hook.

“Have you heard of the Sreng-FAU Cold War?” Claude asks.

Byleth glances up from the picture in her hands and shakes her head.

“That’s because it didn’t happen. It almost did though, and I was there for it.”

He pats the bench next to him. Byleth places the picture back on its stand and sits down.

“You might have heard from Seteth, but my parents are a pretty big deal in the Fodlan-Almyra diplomatic corps. We moved around a lot because their talents were always needed somewhere. Dagda, Brigid, Morfis. There’s not a country on this side of the world that I haven’t been to yet.”

A flicker of interest lights in the woman’s eyes. “Sounds like a hectic life for a child.”

“Oh, I loved it. I was pretty much born on the road. My parents stayed in Almyra for a while after I was born, but as soon as I turned three, off we went. We never stayed in a place for much more than two years, but it was always an adventure.

“The last country we moved to was Sreng, for my mom’s ambassadorship. I hated the cold, so I spent most of my time inside the residence. There was one corridor on the first floor that was just doors upon doors leading to small libraries and reading nooks. I’d spend hours there. Reading books and the diaries of diplomats past. Debating politics with the ministers and counselors who’d come there for research. I was quite the precocious teenager, thinking that I knew better than a bunch of career diplomats. 

“Which I did,” he adds cheekily, eliciting a rare chuckle from Byleth. “I knew way more about international politics than someone my age should have. Everyone told me I would grow up to be even greater than my mom, and I was happy for it. I wanted to be just like her.”

“What changed?”

Claude leans back on the bench and rests his head against the cool concrete wall. “During the holidays, there was an attack on the Embassy. Sreng and the FAU were having a dispute over shipping routes in the Almyran Strait at the time, so some disgruntled anarchists saw an opportunity. Made the attack appear like an organized hit by the Sreng government. Both my parents got hurt and were out of commission for weeks. It was the closest we were to going to war in three hundred years, and without my parents there to lead everyone, I was convinced that people would screw things up. But you know what happened?”

Byleth shakes her head.

“Nothing. The other diplomats handled everything perfectly. Sreng and the Fodlan-Almyran Union sorted out their differences. And the bad guys got caught.”

“Sounds like a fairy tale,” she says with a huff of disbelief.

“Oh, perfectly picturesque. But for little ol’ me, it was eye-opening. All that time, I thought that history was always doomed to repeat itself. That heroes like my mother were the only ones keeping our long years of peace from falling apart. But while there are still problems, there are tons of capable people willing to fight for these values now. Not just my parents. So the next time I thought about my dream of becoming a diplomat after the incident, something didn’t feel quite right.”

The woman frowns. “The world can use more than one talented diplomat. You shouldn’t give up because you’re disappointed about not being the only one.”

There’s an edge in her voice that’s tantalizingly puzzling, but Claude forces himself to ignore it. “Oh, I’m not disappointed. In a weird way, I’m relieved. The world already seems to be in good hands, so I’m free to explore what else I can do.”

Byleth picks at the hems of her clothes, looking strangely uncomfortable. “What does this have to do with your thesis?”

“Getting to that part,” he replies with a wink. “So after all that went down, I decided to do a little soul searching. Find out if I could make a new dream for myself. I asked my parents to send me to one of the boarding schools here in Garreg Mach for high school. When I moved on to college, I decided to major in history instead of politics. And I’ll admit, I’ve had a fair bit of fun. But now that it’s senior year, there are a lot of people trying to guess what I’m going to do next. My family, Seteth, my friends. It’s gotten to a point that I’m not sure where my dreams start and the dreams other people have for me end.”

“So your reluctance to define your topic stems from fear,” Byleth summarizes. “Fear that what you choose won’t measure up to the expectations of those who’ve cared for you your whole life.”

“Yes, and then again no. There’s more to it.”

She turns her head to the side. “In what way? What is it you’re afraid of?”

“I don’t know if I can explain it clearly.”

“Oh really? You always seem to have the right words lined up.”

Claude runs a hand through his hair. “Gaaah, alright. I’m sure I could flourish in the foreign service. My parents paved that path for me. I can also follow in Seteth’s footsteps and become a grumpy old academic, reclaiming great treasures from ancient tombs. But when I see the well-beaten path of my parents, I want to run freely through the grass. I place my feet beside Seteth’s boot prints and they don’t quite line up. I want to know that I’m choosing my own way, not just opting for the obvious opportunities in front of me.” 

He cocks his head and offers a grin. “What about you, Byleth? What dreams are you walking towards?”

Byleth stills. There’s always been an eerie sort of quiet about her, but Claude senses that it’s different this time. For a suspended moment in time, she is a statue made of porcelain, hairline cracks showing plainly in the fluorescent light. When she dips her head to break his gaze, Claude wonders, perhaps too eagerly, if he’s finally succeeded in breaking through her mask. But when the woman looks up, the once still waters of her green eyes roil with intensity. He shivers, though he can’t understand why.

“I’d like to apologize for how I’ve been acting,” she says.

“Acting in what way?” Claude asks, feigning ignorance. To his surprise, the woman offers an almost-smile.

“For being quite cold to you. I’ve never been good at making friends. And I suppose in a way I feel responsible for your concussion. Even if that was Seteth’s fault.”

“So that’s what it’s been this whole time? Guilt?” The word feels off on his tongue, but there seems to be enough truth in it that it doesn’t feel wholly inaccurate either. 

“In a way,” Byleth replies, as if reading his thoughts. “With that said, how would you like to make a deal, Claude?”

“You sure have a way of intriguing a man,“ he murmurs, leaning forward. “What do you have in mind?”

“I didn't have many friends my age growing up,” Byleth admits. “Being with your teammates on Saturday reminded me that I haven’t done much outside of research lately either.”

Claude grins. “What, Seteth’s cheery disposition not enough socialization for you?”

This time, her expression does not crack. “You show me around the city and provide activities to do other than work, I get you access to the tomb. Fair trade, isn’t it?”

All at once, the world comes to a grinding halt. 

“I’m sorry, what?”

Byleth rises from the bench and wanders over to where Claude’s bow sits on its stand. “You won’t know if discovering ancient treasures is your path unless you have the chance to experience it, correct? Besides, you were the one who discovered the tomb. You should have the right to access it.”

He watches warily as she grabs one of the spare arrows from his bag. “Oh I don’t think Seteth would be particularly happy about that,” Claude says, attempting—and failing—to sound even vaguely concerned.

“I can be convincing,” Byleth replies, hand hovering tentatively over Claude’s bow. He nods in approval, then quietly observes from behind. Gone are the questions and the facade of inexperience. When the woman brings the arrow to the bow and draws it back, it is with the fluidity and grace of an expert. No hesitation. No stuttering against the bow’s draw weight. The string kisses one of Byleth’s rare smiles, and in the second before the shot, her face is both regal and serene.

It is then that he realizes, with startling clarity, that he might be underestimating this woman.

The arrow pierces its target with a resounding thud. A ten, dead center.

“What do you say, Claude?” Even as the smile retreats, Byleth’s eyes twinkle with the pleasure of a good shot. His heart pounds. The instincts to run and to fight battle in his throat. 

Oh, Claude thinks, unable to hide his grin. Looks like I’m getting myself into something good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your patience with the long delay! Having international risk management duties has made work fairly rough these past two months, and it really affected my writing (hence the occasional dips of quality in this chapter orz).
> 
> I know this part was mostly set-up and character motivation, but I’m interested to hear what you think! Claude and his team practice Olympic Recurve Archery, so if you’re having trouble visualizing the match or the bows, I recommend watching a few clips from the Rio Olympics. I first learned archery in a non-English setting, so if any terms are off, I apologize! Fun fact: a half round (more commonly known as an olympic round) is a competition of 72 arrows shot, for a total max score of 720 (10 being the highest score on the target). So Claude's 667 means he shot an average score of 9 per arrow.
> 
> Still planning to try and update this fic at least once a month, so thank you again for sticking with it!
> 
> Hope you’re staying safe and healthy!


	4. heartbeat to the beat of the drums

“One week,” she tells him. “I’ll get your access to the tomb in one week.”

To Claude, the estimate is both surprisingly short and not short enough. It kicks the restless energy lingering from the weekend into overdrive, sends his mind spinning frantically with the sudden need to prepare.

By the evening, he has a library shelf worth of books spread out in front of him on the kitchen table. Pages upon pages of medieval Fodlan history and Seirosian iconography. Reproductions of old monastery manifests. More than five variations of the Queen Beles legend, including a copy of the original Casagranda _Sword of Dawn_ opera. On his laptop, a video playlist cycles through detailed battle analyses of the Five Year War and its aftermath.

For the most part, the other Golden Deer take his change in momentum in stride. Ignatz brings him another book on art history. Marianne leaves an apple on the table, while Raphael offers his half-eaten bowl of chips. The only one at all bothered is Hilda, who eyes Claude with a curious expression.

“Now that’s a look I haven’t seen in a while,” Hilda observes, squinting at him from the living room over the tips of her freshly lacquered nails. “What are you scheming?”

“It’s for the thesis,” Claude lies. In his head, he calculates how much of his homework he can cram during his commute, while his pen scratches furiously against loose sheets of printer paper.

> _Things known about Byleth: Seteth’s cousin (?), 20s (?), eerily perfect facial control, ~~eyes like the sea,~~ surprisingly lonely, ~~nice laugh,~~ good at archery, lock picks, likes fish and Almyran Pine tea. 100% hiding something. ~~Immortal god-queen? Needs more evidence.~~ Really sharp. Don’t underestimate._
> 
> _Things known about the Tomb: possibly belongs to Queen Beles. No one allowed in and out unless they’re authorized. Seteth leads a research team funded by the Royal Family, but won't talk about it. Neither will Byleth. ~~Watch out for falling rocks.~~_
> 
> _Current Deal: Byleth gets me access into the tomb so long as I provide her things to do during her free time._  
>  _-Advantages: tomb access, more chances to observe Byleth and gain her trust_  
>  _-Cons: ??? ~~There has to be catch, what is the catch~~_
> 
> _Help Possible?_  
>  ~~_Dimitri._ ~~  
>  ~~_Edelgard._ ~~  
>  ~~_Hilda._ ~~  
>  ~~_Leonie._ ~~  
>  ~~_Lysithea._ ~~  
>  ~~_Raphael._ ~~  
>  ~~_Ignatz._ ~~  
>  ~~_Marianne._ ~~  
>  ~~_Lorenz._ ~~  
>  _Zero chance. Would probably think I’m going mad. I’m on my own for this one._
> 
> _Win Conditions:_  
>  _\- Gain Byleth’s trust so that she reveals her hand willingly_  
>  _\- Gather enough evidence, then force or trick her to come clean_  
>  ~~_\- Not sure which one’s gonna be harder_ ~~

By breakfast the next morning, Claude has a haphazard list of about twenty possible activities to pitch to Byleth, all scribbled in and around the margins of his notes. He narrows in on the first immediately, grabbing his phone with such speed that it startles a half-asleep Lysithea as she shuffles her way into the kitchen.

“Have you seriously been down here all night?” The girl gapes in disbelief. Instead of responding, he messages Dimitri, who messages Ingrid, who messages both Felix and Sylvain. Claude, in turn, messages Petra and Caspar, who answer his text with their usual vigor.

_Saturday at the usual place?_ Dimitri asks. Claude sends a thumbs up emoji, then a heart.

“I think you’re going to enjoy the first activity I have planned for you,” he tells Byleth during his Thursday shift at the Co-op. 

“I don’t suppose I get a hint?” She places the money for her tea on the countertop. Exact change.

“It’s a game.”

“What kind of game?”

“You’ll see,” Claude says with a wink. “Just be sure to wear something you can run in. Long pants recommended.” When he brings her cup of Almyran Pine, brewed again from his personal stash, the relief on Byleth’s face is palpable. Intoxicating. “The doctor said I’m good to go on my bike, so I’ll pick you up on Saturday morning. What’s your address?”

“Just meet me at the Canopus monorail station.” The woman takes a sip of her tea, then eyes Claude over the rim of the to-go cup. “You know, it’s awful convenient that your shifts have alway been at three o’clock this week.”

“Oh?” Claude grins. “Well I think it’s awful convenient that you’re still stopping by at this time.”

To his delight, the corners of Byleth’s mouth twitch upward in response.

☼☼☼

  
Canopus is a newly developed neighborhood on the south side of Garreg Mach City, a few minutes off the main highway. At its center, a boardwalk of high-end shops and restaurants line a pristine man-made lake. A state-of-the-art cinema and a synthetic turf park, site of the weekly farmer’s market, are a short five minute walk away. Luxury apartments fill the surrounding area, windows green and shining like the still, fishless waters of the lake below. It’s the kind of place Hilda visits to stock up on organic bath bombs, not the kind of place Claude imagines Doctor Flayn with her retro Mary Janes and rusted jalopy calling home.

Byleth is waiting for him when he pulls up to the station on Saturday, a shadow in jeans and a hoodie against the white, stainless concrete. A frown appears on her face when he approaches and remains even after he removes his helmet.

“What is that?” Byleth asks, pointing to Claude.

Claude looks down at the metal frame between his legs. Leans over to look at one side, then another. No flat tires. No smoke sputtering from the exhaust pipe or trash caught in the gears. The pearl white fairing shines with barely a hint of dirt or splattered bug. 

“I’m pretty sure this is a bike,” he says.

“That’s nothing like the bike Flayn has,” Byleth huffs, wringing the strap of her satchel. Claude imagines the Doctor’s bicycle, the single-speed cruiser with the blue frame and wicker basket he sees her riding sometimes on campus, and bites down a laugh.

“Ah, my bad. Probably should have been more specific on Thursday. I take it you’ve never ridden a motorcycle before?” The woman shakes her head. “It’s a blast. Just put this on.”

She inspects the helmet Claude gives her with tentative hands, lips pressed into a thin line, and for a hot second, he wonders if she’s even ridden a normal bicycle yet.

“We can take the monorail instead if you’re uncomfortable,” Claude says. “No point in stressing you out this early.”

“I can do this,” she insists. It takes a moment for her to work out the straps, but once the helmet is snug over her head, she swings her leg over the bike’s rear cowl and wraps her arms around Claude’s waist. There’s a sureness to the way she fits against him, an absence of discomfort that even those used to riding with him lack. It’s as if she’s made to be there, like the last piece of a puzzle box clicking shut, and when she shifts, the memory of their closeness in the tower comes to him, unbidden—her breath on his cheek, her eyes above him like stars in the night.

“Claude?” The muffled sound of Byleth’s voice echoes in his helmet.

The engine roars beneath him, rumbling in time to the blood thrumming in his ears. 

“Hold on tight!” he shouts.

They fly eastbound on the 16 to a forested field on the city outskirts, where a rusted “Valley Way Paintball” sign hangs above the entrance to a mostly empty parking lot. Byleth’s arms around his waist tighten at the sight of Petra and Caspar loitering around Caspar’s coupe, and the strength of her grip nearly knocks the wind out of him.

“No need to be nervous,” he says as he pulls into a nearby spot. “They’re good friends.” Her grip holds for just a second longer, then relaxes as she moves to dismount.

Petra is the first of the two to run over. “It is being too long,” she laughs, hugging Claude fiercely after he dismounts his bike. There’s a new piercing on her right ear, and her skin is still its beautifully dark, pre-winter hue. When she lets go, a strong hand claps him roughly on the back—Caspar, looking no different than their last paintball game before summer break.

“Good to see you back in action, man! By the way, you remember Linhardt, right?” Caspar’s boyfriend, a face Claude recognizes as a regular of the university library, ruminates deeply over a book in the passenger’s seat of Caspar’s coupe, thin legs folded against the dashboard. “It was my turn to pick the weekend activity,” Caspar explains, smug.

“Glad to have him on board,” Claude says, tamping down his skepticism. “I think. Anyways, this is Byleth. I’m gonna make sure Dimitri has enough money for our entry fee, so be nice for a sec.”

There’s a tension in Byleth’s eyes that makes Claude almost hesitate to leave. But then Petra introduces herself to her, and then Caspar, and all that vulnerability closes over itself like a trap, replaced by the mask of vague pleasantness Claude has come to recognize so well.

At the picnic tables next to the lot, Felix, Sylvain, and Ingrid are already inspecting the available rental rifles, sorting out the ammo capsules between blue and yellow. “Hey there, Claude!” shouts Sylvain when he passes. “Ready to continue your losing streak?” 

“Wouldn’t count on that if I were you,” Claude replies with a wink. “I’ve got a feeling Lady Luck will be on my side today.”

He catches Dimitri counting money on the table next over, silently cursing the outdatedness of a cash-only business. “So who are your two people?” Dimitri asks once they finish adding Claude’s three fees to the pile.

“Well, one of them is chatting with Petra, and I’m sure the other will be here soon.”

As if on cue, the sound of Leonie’s beat-up station wagon drifts into the parking lot. The car itself pulls in moments later, spitting a trail of black smoke from its exhaust, and out of the passenger door steps Marianne, looking the sportiest Claude has ever seen her in the past three years.

Dimitri’s expression is murderous. “Claude.”

“I look forward to you thanking me later,” he says, guiding Dimitri over with a firm hand on his back.

“Thank you for the concern, Leonie,” the two of them hear Marianne say as they approach. “I’ll be alright.”

“You sure?” Leonie leans over from the driver’s seat, concern transforming into a frown when she notices Claude through the window. “You guys better not bully her,” she warns them. “I know where you live.”

“Very funny. Relax, she’ll be fine,” Claude insists. Dimitri‘s attention is, predictably, occupied elsewhere.

“Um. It is good to see you, Marianne.”

The woman offers a shy smile. “It is good to see you too, Dimitri. Thank you very much for inviting me today.”

Dimitri stiffens. Claude takes a step back to avoid the murderous intent emanating from his friend’s body.

“I’ve been wanting to try new things before I graduate, so I was excited when Claude mentioned you wanted me along,” Marianne continues, blissfully unaware. “Though to be honest, I’m not too sure I’ll be any good at this...”

“I’m sure you’ll do great,” Dimitri says hastily. The grin on Claude’s face pulls hard enough to make his cheeks hurt. 

“Well,” Claude says. “Now that everyone’s here, let’s go over the rules of engagement, shall we?”

The brief takes a little longer than normal with their newcomers, but the game is simple enough. Five people per team, three rounds in total. The objective, capturing the opposing team’s flag and returning it to your base. Anyone hit with an opposing team’s paintball must leave the field and wait in the “deadbox.” The game ends when either the objective is completed or one team is eliminated.

“It’s a very tactical game,” Claude says, looking directly at Byleth. “One that relies on teamwork and strategy.” 

No reaction.

The woman’s face remains infuriatingly neutral throughout the brief and as they split apart the teams. Dimitri, Sylvain, Felix, Ingrid, and Marianne on one; Claude, Byleth, Petra, Caspar, and Linhardt on the other. Even when he fishes for her opinion on strategy before the first round, Byleth simply shrugs. 

“I’m not sure I’ll do well at this,” she admits. She puzzles over her rented paintball rifle, nearly peering into the barrel before Claude stops her.

“You’ll get the hang of it quick,” he reassures, showing her how to load the paintballs. The woman fumbles the ammo pod, and the round, paint-filled capsules scatter across the tables and into dirt.

We’ll be fine, he tells himself as Caspar trips trying to avoid the mess. This will work out perfectly.

Right?

☼☼☼

The picnic table is cool and firm, a steady pressure against Claude’s back as he takes in a meditative breath. Above him, puffy clouds heavy with water putter across the blue expanse. A blackbird rustles the drying branches. To his left, the others chat as they rest up for the third round. Sylvain surprises Linhardt and Petra with a surprisingly elegant summary of game theory and its application to business. Felix commiserates with Caspar over the rising cost of student parking.

He doesn’t hear Byleth, but surely she’s there, listening intently. What is she thinking now? Does she turn the last two rounds over in her head like he does? Or is she annoyed by the inane babble of college students, reconsidering whether her and Claude’s deal is more trouble than it’s worth?

He closes his eyes. Breathe. One, two, three. Exhale. One, two, three. 

The first round went down like a sack of bricks. He had planned to go in with very little strategy in the hope that Byleth would naturally fall into leadership on the field. But at each turn, she tested the limits of both the game and his patience. Running straight into fire, throwing spare ammo canisters as distractions until she no longer had any ammo herself.

Trying to physically hit Sylvain with her rifle didn’t help, either.

Claude did what he could to salvage the second round, but if not for Dimitri’s team putting Dimitri and Marianne at the front—a ploy, no doubt, to get those two to bond—and Felix sabotaging his team’s strategy with his impatience, Petra would have never been able to sneak in and get the flag.

Did he make a mistake? Sure, this type of “battle” is very different, very modern. But the fundamentals must transfer somehow. He’ll have to go back to the drawing board after this. Reconsider his theory that Byleth could be—

A bead of water hits Claude’s face. He blinks, then notices the bottle dangling overhead.

“The vending machine gave me two,” Ingrid explains. “And I noticed that you, unlike everyone else, haven’t hydrated yet.”

Every muscle in Claude’s body screams when he sits up. He takes the bottle, then tentatively sips. The water is on the lukewarm side of cold and tastes more than a little bit metallic.

“Glad to see you aren’t taking it easy on us because of poor old me,” he says, wry.

“Oh, you know how competitive Sylvain, Felix, and Dimitri can get,” Ingrid replies dismissively, as if she herself hadn’t torn across the field during their last match like a valkyrie seeking blood. “Thanks for bringing Marianne to this, by the way. We’ve been trying to get Dimitri to hang out with her for months.

A few tables down, Marianne laughs at something Dimitri says, shyly fiddling with the hem of her jacket.

Claude leans forward. “Watch. He’s going to scratch the back of his neck right about—”

When Dimitri raises a hand to his neck, Ingrid rolls her eyes. “He’s been smitten ever since he volunteered at her horsemanship clinic this summer.”

“You’d think with it being senior year, he’d start to feel some pressure to make a move.”

“Sylvain and Felix have been doing their best to goad him into it.”

“Oh? And how’s that going for them?”

“Well, those two being who they are, I’d be surprised if they don’t scare Dimitri off of relationships forever,” Ingrid sighs with an exasperated affection. “I’ve been meaning to ask, but is Edelgard still—well, you know…”

“About you and Dorothea?” 

Ingrid nods. 

Claude hums, thoughtful. “Nah. She’s not the type to hold an ex’s choices against them. The two of them parted on good terms, so it’d be weird for her to be mad about you two getting together.”

“I guess. It’s hard to read her sometimes.”

“Haven’t you known her longer than me?”

Ingrid shuffles her feet around in the dirt, watches the blackbird dart into the picnic seating area, poking around for food. “I suppose so. Even though we all grew up in Garreg Mach, she went to a different elementary school than the four of us. Dimitri would invite her over to play whenever we visited his house, but we were never close.”

Claude tries to imagine it. Sylvain, Felix, and Ingrid waiting on Dimitri’s front lawn, Dimitri returning from the house next door with Edelgard in tow. Did Edelgard hide behind Dimitri back then? Or did she lead the way, cheeks puffed in childish bravado? He imagines them playing in the river behind Dimitri’s house till sunset, dreaming of knights and dragons and adventures in far away places. Building whatever it is that allows them to remain so in sync even now.

The image drips with enough sentiment to make his teeth ache, but even then, he can’t quite let it go. What is it like to have friends that stick around for years? To have friends who’ve grown with you, who know you almost better than you know yourself?

“What’s wrong, Claude?” 

Claude realizes that he’s frowning.

“Oh nothing. Just thinking about how cute the five of you must have been as kids. It’s tragic how things can change for the worst.” He jumps off the table with a cackle, narrowly avoiding Ingrid’s swing. “You should try to catch up with Edelgard,” Claude says, more serious. “She won’t bite, I promise.”

He’s tossing his water bottle into the recycling when Byleth flags him down, brows furrowed ever-so-slightly in thought.

“Claude, give me command of this last round.”

He frowns, skeptical. “You sure?”

To his utter shock, the woman almost scowls. “Do you want to win or not?”

Now that has his attention. Claude drops his voice low. “And what do you have in mind?”  
  
Byleth pulls out a map hastily drawn on the back of a napkin. The detail is astounding—accounting for clearings and the placement of wooden bunkers throughout the field—but it’s not nearly as impressive as everything that follows. Person by person, the woman lays out detailed psychological analyses that make Claude’s head spin. Weaknesses. Strengths. Easy psychological exploits. Many of these things were already familiar to Claude, but for her to decipher this in just a few hours of knowing them? A wave of excitement rises in his chest.

“The trio will likely repeat their formation from the first match,” Byleth explains. “Sylvain and Ingrid advancing on the right and left flanks, Felix rushing out front through the middle as bait. They’re getting tired and will see this as their path to a quick win. I’ll have Caspar here, guarding the middle. If Felix retreats to lure him into a crossfire between Sylvain and Ingrid, Caspar will instead meet up with Petra here to eliminate whoever is on the left flank. By the time Felix notices anything amiss, at least one of the others will be out of the game.”

“And where will I be?”

Byleth traces the route marked on the far right of the field. “I need you with me. We’ll take out the person on this flank, then advance forward into Dimitri’s territory. He’ll be preoccupied chatting with Marianne, so it will take him a moment to realize things are amiss on our side of the field. Then, when he rushes over to provide backup, I need you to pin him down. Do anything you can to keep him on his side of the field and keep his attention off me. I can take care of Marianne myself as I go to the flag.”

“Taking advantage of the lovebirds being distracted, are we? Mighty devious of you.”

Byleth cocks a brow. “That’s why you invited Marianne, isn’t it?”

A sly grin makes its way to his lips. “I’m just helping a dear friend out,” he says, coy. Shifting gears, Claude turns his attention to their own flag. “Are you sure we can trust Linhardt with defending this?”

“Yes. I told him I’d teach him how to sneak into the cathedral’s private library if we win. He’ll be plenty motivated.”

Claude blinks, taken aback. “And I don’t suppose you’d be willing to share that little secret with me as well?”

Byleth almost smiles. “ _If_ we win.”

As a squad leader, Byleth is stern. She walks the rest of the team through her plan with little humor. Points out their habits, both good and bad. But Caspar, Petra, and even Linhardt listen intently, determined in a way that Claude’s never seen before. There’s something about Byleth, he realizes when the team splits off into their positions. Something that makes people want to try their best around her. Claude adds this to the mental list of things he knows about the woman and makes a note to look into it further.

For a long while, it’s just him and Byleth and the sound of dry leaves rustling underfoot. An anticipatory silence hangs between the two of them, punctuated by awkward breaths filtered through their protective paintball masks. Then, five minutes after the start of the round, a flash of blue dashes straight down the field’s center—Felix, making good on Byleth’s prediction. Shortly after, there is an exchange of fire. A yell from Caspar in challenge. 

“Looks like it’s started,” Claude mutters. When the volley intensifies, he and Byleth exchange glances and quicken their pace.

At the end of their fern cover, close to the midway point of the field, a sliver of red darts between the trees in Claude’s periphery. A robin, perhaps. Or—

Claude lunges, pushing Byleth’s head beneath him. A blue paintball splatters on a branch overhead, close enough for a few droplets to fall on the back of his neck. Byleth shifts against his chest, twisting her body so that her rifle isn’t pinned between the two of them, and aims off to their left. Three capsules fly from her rifle in rapid succession. Three quickly turns into four, then five, then—

“Shit!” Sylvain walks out from behind a tree with his hands raised, a yellow splotch of paint dripping down his left leg.

“You got me,” he says with a wince of disappointment. “Not bad.”

Claude winks, heart pounding in his ears. “Like I said. Lady Luck’s with me today.” 

Byleth moves out from between the cage of Claude’s arms and wordlessly continues their advance. This far afield, whatever fighting goes on behind them is faint, but Claude deciphers what he can. The sound traveling further away from them means Caspar is moving to join Petra. The absence of any noise behind them means Felix likely isn’t pursuing them.

From afar, two familiar voices simultaneously yell out in surprise.

Petra’s out. But so is Ingrid.

“Dimitri should be advancing soon,” Byleth whispers. “You know what to do?”

“You got it. Good luck.” They split apart at the main clearing on Dimitri’s side of the field. Claude waits until Byleth is well back within cover, then settles down into a defensible position behind a wooden bunker. He checks his ammo once, twice. Takes a deep breath. Then, once he’s sure that Byleth has gained a little bit more ground, he fires several shots into the distance.

Dimitri crashes through the underbrush moments later, rifle raised to his shoulder. “I know you’re here,” he calls out. The foolish, almost knightly bravado nearly gets Claude to laugh, but instead he waits. Listens for the crunch of Dimitri’s shoes on the grass. Then, when the sound grows loud enough, Claude swings out from behind cover and fires.

Dimitri rolls quickly behind one of the nearby bunkers, Claude’s shots missing him by mere inches. He can hear Dimitri fumbling to readjust his ammo belt, rushing to get in a better position to retaliate. “Oh, I will look forward to getting you out, Claude,” he shouts.

“You’re still mad about Marianne? I thought you’d be happy after all that alone ti—“

Several capsules explode against the tree next to him, pushing Claude behind his cover. Back and forth they go, jumping from bunker to bunker, chasing after any opening or unguarded flank they can find. For a man so tall, Dimitri’s surprisingly hard to hit, and after minutes upon minutes of this exchange, Claude feels the difference in their physical stamina catching up to him.

_Byleth, where the hell are you?_

As if his thoughts were prayers, the woman’s head pops up over the crest of a nearby ditch, the bright blue flag tucked in her belt fluttering like a prize ribbon as she scrambles up and over. Claude sighs in relief, waving at her to stop. But then she starts gesturing to him. Telling him to turn around, to…

Dimitri, directly to Claude's left without a single obstacle in the way, fires.

“Claude!”

Byleth’s voice shatters around him. Claude ducks, and the shot that should have hit him moments prior only now just wizzes over his head. Warning bells ring in his ears as he stares at the splotch of blue on the slab of wood behind him. The spot where the paintball should have hit—high on his collarbone, over his heart—aches with a phantom sting.

Everything happens so quickly then. 

Byleth runs forward, Dimitri runs back. Dimitri fires. Byleth flips backwards, twisting in midair—suspended for one sweet second like a lingering note in an empty cathedral. Three shots sound from her rifle. One to Dimitri’s shoulder, one to his chest, one to his leg. The man staggers from the momentum, one knee hitting the dirt hard.

When Byleth’s feet touch back to the ground, the hair tie she borrowed from Petra snaps. Her hair rushes about her shoulders, messy and wild, and in that moment, wreathed in cold ferocity, she’s a goddess of war. Or maybe even a demon.

Claude gawks, awestruck enough to almost miss the way Dimitri curls inward on his knees, shaking. 

Almost.

He waits for Dimitri to recover, but then the seconds pass like minutes, and the gut feeling that something is terribly off solidifies into something real.

“Byleth, stay there.”

The goddess vanishes, replaced with a woman who can only look on helplessly as Dimitri’s shivering worsens. Claude tucks the flag that Byleth dropped in her display of athleticism into his ammo belt, then calmly walks over to the other man, whose panicked gasps push against his paintball mask like an animal desperate for escape.

“Hey Mitya.” Claude goes down to his knee slowly, careful not to make any sudden movements. “Tell me what you need.”

Dimitri mumbles something unintelligible.

“The normal, then? Alright, breathe to my count. One, hold. Exhale. Two, hold. Exhale...”

Byleth’s eyes bore into his back like two suns, but he forces himself to focus on the task at hand. Once Dimitri’s breathing slows, Claude looks around for something else for Dimitri to focus on.

“Alright, next part. How many circles can you find in front of you? Can you count them for me?”

“Sixteen,” Dimitri mutters after a moment.

“Oh, my shoelaces, huh? Sorry, was hoping to choose an easy shape.”

“No, it’s good.” Dimitri reaches up to remove the mask from his face. He shakes a little as he puts it on the ground, but the smile in his tired eyes seems genuine. Not haunted. “Thank you.”

Behind them, Linhardt emerges from a bush, looking only a little worse for wear. The fact that he’s so far infield without Caspar can only mean that he’s the one who somehow dealt with Felix, which is so preposterous that it makes Claude’s head spin.

“Are we done yet?” Linhardt picks at a burr stuck to his hair. “I’d like to get this dirt washed off and Caspar keeps texting me about how bored he is waiting off the field.”

“I think so. Byleth, were you able to take care of everything?”

Claude’s heart sinks when the woman shakes her head. “No one was at the flag when I got there. I ran back because I thought she was here.” 

“Well then, where the hell is—“

Marianne crashes through the brush, shooting like a wild woman with her eyes closed. Paintballs hit both Claude and Byleth square in the chest. Linhardt manages to dodge the first wave, firing at least a couple shots in retaliation, but soon joins Byleth and Claude with a matching blue mark on his arm. Marianne shoots until there’s no ammo left in her gun, then sinks down next to Dimitri, shaking from adrenaline.

The rest of their teammates converge on the commotion shortly after, their concern transforming into confusion when they take in the scene in front of them.

“Does that mean we win?” Sylvain asks cheekily.

“Ah…” Linhardt points at a splotch of yellow on Marianne’s arm, just as wet as the splashes of blue on everyone else.

“Did anyone catch who hit first?” 

“Does it matter, Ingrid? Our team got your flag, so clearly we won.”

“You never made it back to base before everyone got out, so it doesn’t count, dumbass.”

“Dumbass?! Let’s settle this in a shoot-off then. You and me.”

“Boys, can we please settle down and stop acting like children?”

“Caspar, perhaps it is I who should be the one who is having the shooting-off for our team. As Byleth said, you do not run as fast as Felix.”

“Seriously, Petra?”

Dimitri’s shoulders shake. For a split second, Claude braces himself for another attack, but instead of panic, it’s laughter that comes bursting from Dimitri, drawing everyone’s attention. “A tie,” Dimitri says, wiping a tear from his eye. ”Let’s call it a tie, then.”

Claude looks to Byleth, who nods with a small, weary smile. “Yeah,” Claude laughs, grabbing Dimitri’s outstretched hand. “A tie.”

☼☼☼

>   
>  The battle is over. His highness is dead. For once, I am grateful for the terrifying countenance of those from Duscur. The imperial army would have collected his highness’s body for a trophy if not for his retainer, who I heard charged through the mists with the rage of a demon.
> 
> Madame Mercedes perished on the front lines, so now I have been placed in charge of preparing his highness’s corpse for burial. It is astounding to see how much he had endured before falling. Six spears to his back. A full volley of arrows through his breastplate and upper arms. As a girl growing up in the countryside, I’ve seen wild boar the size of a small horse fall to less than this.
> 
> The only irregular wound was a fresh burn mark, running from his left shoulder to the top of his right leg. It was as if he were branded by some magic whip, which sounds utterly ludicrous, as no one on that battlefield would have entered with such an impractical weapon or attacked without ensuring a lethal blow. Still, when I revealed this to his highness’s retainer, whatever rage in his eyes winked out, replaced by something akin to familiarity and regret. I have not seen him emerge from his tent since.
> 
> This is the end to the Kingdom of Faerghus. No one dares speak it within camp, not even I, but the air is heavy with the truth. I’ve heard word that the heirs to the Houses Gautier and Fraldarius were slain in the fighting. The daughter of House Galatea as well. They were our only hope to retake the Kingdom from the Empire, and as mad as our Prince was, that madness spoke to the hearts of our old warriors, those who’d poured too much blood and sweat and steel to see the Kingdom fall without one last blaze of glory. 
> 
> For many years I have questioned the wisdom of teaching our children of war before walking. I hear the Adrestian Empress began this war when she was but a child herself. What would she and our prince have been if the old did not make weapons of their young? What of the heirs of Gautier, Fraldarius, and Galatea? I cannot even imagine it.

Melody Grant, field diary entry, Great Tree Moon 30, IY 1185, in _The Diaries and Letters of Fodlan’s Five-Year War_ , ed. Raine Adenade (Fhirdiad: Fhirdiad University Press, UY 760), 130.

☼☼☼

The hockey puck hits the back of the net with a resounding slap, the sharpness of its sound slashing through the cool air of the Rhodos Memorial Arena. From the top row of seats, Claude watches Dimitri glide away with a pump of his fist, readjusting for the next run. The rest of the stands are empty save for himself and a few fangirls pressed up against the glass, clamoring to get a glimpse of their favorite player at practice, but Dimitri seems to be too immersed into his sets to notice either them or Claude.

Someone slides into the seat next to him, leg brushing against his.

“I had a feeling you’d be here,” Byleth says.

“You’ve got quite the sixth sense, then,” Claude responds. “How’d you find me?”

“Sylvain mentioned that he was on the hockey team with Dimitri, and I heard them having practice from outside.” Her hands are empty of a to-go cup—a strange sight for this time in the afternoon.

“No afternoon tea?”

“The barista said they didn’t have any Almyran Pine, so I decided to see if you’d be willing to come back and brew some for me.” It takes Claude a second to realize that this is Byleth’s version of a joke, deadpan look and all. Claude chuckles, earning the hint of a pleased smile.

“How is Dimitri doing?” she asks. Her hands fold themselves neatly in her lap, perfectly still and restrained.

“Seems alright. Fumbled a bit on the passing exercise, but he’s giving Raphael hell during these shooting drills. He’ll be good to go for their first game tonight.”

“No, I mean about...”

“This weekend?” 

Byleth nods. The hands in her lap tighten.

“Dimitri just has those attacks sometimes. I doubt it had anything to do with you.”

The woman doesn’t look convinced. She leans forward, as if trying to inspect Dimitri for herself from afar. “Are you two close?” She asks out of the blue.

What an odd question. Claude scratches the back of his neck. Leans backward into his chair. “I mean, we’re friends from high school, but compared to Sylvain or Felix, I’m not that important…”

He makes the mistake of turning his head. She’s looking directly at him now, sea-green eyes curious. Waiting for the hook.

So he tells her. Tells her how he and Dimitri were roommates throughout boarding school. How he woke up to Dimitri screaming during their very first night. He doesn’t mention how the other boy thrashed so hard that Claude could feel it from his bed. Or how Dimitri looked when Claude shook him awake—eyes frantic and wide, searching for ghosts in every corner of their room. That evening, they stayed awake until the morning sun chased the shadows back into their hiding holes, talking awkwardly of everything and nothing.

“He used to have attacks pretty frequently in high school,” Claude muses. “But this weekend was probably his first one in years.”

Byleth shifts. The fabric of her skirt rasps loud against his pants leg. “I’m impressed that you still knew how to calm him down.”

“Old habits die hard, I guess. Just learned what I could do to get a decent night’s sleep.”

“You’re undervaluing your efforts. Having someone to walk you through your worst nights is a gift.”

“Speaking from experience?”

“Perhaps.”

Claude hums, watches Coach Catherine glide over to chew out someone on the other side of the rink.

“I’m surprised you aren’t asking me to elaborate,” Byleth remarks, sounding amused.

He grimaces. “Sometimes even I know when not to pry.”

To his surprise, the woman offers a smile. A genuine one, small as it is. “When my father passed away, I suffered from nightmares for a month straight. Cold sweats, screaming. My...roommate back then would talk to me as I tried to fall back asleep. She’d always been a good friend, but it wasn’t until then did I realize the extent of it. I am sure Dimitri feels the same about you.”

His back straightens. “I’m sorry about your dad,” Claude says, somewhat mystified at the level of information Byleth just casually divulged. 

“Don’t be. It was a long time ago.”

Someone shouts in the rink below. Sylvain is sliding belly down on the ice after a puck. Felix scowls, while Dimitri laughs, smile wide enough to be seen from the upper section of the arena.

“Do you still keep in contact with your roommate?” Claude asks.

“No.” She twists a lock of her hair between her thumb and forefinger, back and forth. “She left shortly after. I didn’t hear from her much after that.” 

Pregnant silence. Then, the sound of rummaging through a bag.

“I have this for you.” The envelope that Byleth hands him is more cloth than paper, the very feel of it expensive to the touch. When he slides it open, a badge trimmed in yellow and green falls out onto his lap. His college ID photo grins up at him, positioned over the words “Claude Amir Nasim. Observer Access. Royal Science Expedition.” A hologram of the FAU Royal insignia—two white wyverns curled around the Crest of Riegan cradling a star—shines when he tilts the card against the light.

Blood thrums loudly in Claude’s ears as his mind cross-checks for logistics. “Can we go now?”

“We can, if you’d like. I thought you might want to speak with Dimitri after his practice.”

A whistle sounds. The hockey team glides to the center of the rink for a huddle. Coach Catherine speaks first, then Dimitri. Though his words are unintelligible from afar, they ring with warmth and conviction—the voice of a captain. Sylvain is grinning. Raphael whoops in excitement. Even the sour-faced Felix smirks when the team places their hands together in the center of their huddle.

“Oh, he’ll be alright,” Claude says with a half-hearted grin when the cheer sounds. “He has his team.”

☼☼☼

The lift into the tomb, an elegant marble platform tucked in a nondescript crypt, is guarded by two men dressed in khaki fatigues, the royal insignia emblazoned on their ID badges. Claude pauses at the pistols sitting at their hips, but Byleth strolls forward as if the guards were nothing but dust. They stand still as statues when they pass, unnervingly out of place. 

The platform lowers down into the stone shaft light as air—powered, according to Byleth, by some variation of ancient Agarthan technology that leaves a trace of static on his tongue. Claude’s head spins with the implications. He babbles his theories the entire way down, light-headed with excitement, and though Byleth responds with little more than a few words per question, the soft blue-green glow of the lift tricks him into thinking that her expression looks almost fond.

When he steps off the lift and onto the ground floor, a wave of deja vu hits him. The ghost of sweet incense lingering in the stagnant air, the abyss-like darkness that lingers in the corners of the room. All across the way—past the scurrying researchers and networks of construction lights—the long set of stairs from his dream rises from the ground toward the heavens.

_In the tomb-like dark, the woman on the throne shines like starlight._

“Odd,” says Byleth. “It seems that Seteth is elsewhere at the moment.”

_Office hours on Mondays_ , Claude remembers, smug. _Three to five_. Before Byleth’s scrutinizing eyes turn his way, he feigns a disappointed look.

“Oh darn,” he says. “Don’t suppose this means the tour is over?”

Conflict plays across the woman’s face for a split second before settling into resignation. “Where to?” She asks.

A grin breaks on his face. “Up to climbing some stairs?”

Many narrow steps later, Claude stands at the top of the dias. Even from here, the tomb is larger than it has any right to be, pillars stretching upward for at least several stories above him. The floor below shines like polished jade, and the round glass lanterns that cling to the pillars glow like jellyfish in the deep sea. He recalls a story he heard once in Brigid—a story of a man whisked away to an undersea palace for one night, only to find that many years had passed when he returned to the surface. As he walks around the lonely stone throne, Claude wonders, for a moment, if the woman in his dream would find that story familiar.

“What do you think?” Byleth’s voice echoes from behind him, eerily disembodied.

Claude squints at the symbol engraved on the throne’s backrest—an elegant stroke like an incomplete numeral six. “Seems strange for a throne to be here, to be honest. Even with the lines of sarcophagi, this tomb is laid out more like an audience chamber”

Or a cathedral.

“Then perhaps that means our initial theories were mistaken,” Byleth hums, her face turned away. “Shall we head back?”

“I guess.”

Byleth goes down the steps first, her hair flashing starlight as it sways. But before he tears himself away from the throne, an odd set of scratches on the armrest catches Claude’s eye. Vaguely aware of how many rules he’s breaking, Claude wipes the dust off with the sleeve of his hoodie. It’s a phrase in Almyran. Classical Almyran at that, though the marks appear younger than the other surrounding engravings. His mind does a quick translation, then runs it again to make sure it’s correct.

_Follow the sun._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise title drop!
> 
> Thank you to everyone who waited patiently for this chapter. My goal has been to get something up at least once a month, but looking at my average writing time, some months are going to be harder to make than others. Hit me up on either Twitter or Tumblr to check in on my progress! Username is verdantstars on both.
> 
> In case you’re wondering about my choice of background pairings in this fic, my goal is to explore relationships between characters who were never able to be happy together during Byleth’s time--either because they died, because they were on opposite sides of the war (e.g. Dimitri and Marianne), or because the game never fully explores their relationship despite their chemistry (e.g. Ingrid and Dorothea). 
> 
> They aren’t exactly my favorite pairs for each character (rip, my heart for not pairing Hilda with Mari), but they’re fun “what-ifs” for this modern time. If you aren’t a fan of any of the pairings, then don’t worry! They’ll mostly be in the background.


	5. one look and the avalanche drops

For most of his waking hours, Claude is haunted by three simple words.

_Follow._ To go or come after.

_The._ A word defined solely by its function, marking a phenomenon.

_Sun._ A heavenly body, the brightest star.

In Classical Almyran, the calligraphy falls and twists like the autumn wind. He finds himself tracing it idly against his desk during classes. Through condensation on bathroom tile as he stands pondering beneath the running shower each night.

Apart, the words mean nothing. Together, they are ancient, venerable. There’s a weight to them that sits in Claude’s chest like a stone, achingly tangible, yet each source available to him either provides no leads or too many. It’s not an Almyran proverb, as he initially suspected. Nor is it some famous adage from an Almyran general or king. He doubts that someone from more than 800 years ago would guess the tagline of a medium-sized travel agency in Goneril, but it wouldn’t be the wildest thing he’s seen this semester.

More than anything, it’s the timing of this potentially earth-shattering discovery that ties Claude up into knots. With the Wyvern Moon’s rise, university life takes a sharp turn to the inevitable. A thousand pages of readings are skimmed between rounds during archery practice. Assignments with unfortunately aligned due dates are juggled alongside other obligations like eating. During one particularly sleepless night, Claude grades his Medieval Fodlan section’s first term papers, twenty-five in all, then polishes his thesis proposal for Seteth to review in the morning.

“The Architecture of Memory: the usage of symbols in the tomb beneath Garreg Mach Monastery.” Seteth strokes his beard in thought, the motion pulling at the dark bags hanging from his eyes. The smell of tobacco and vapor rub lingers heavily in the air around him. His tea mug, as far as Claude can tell, hasn’t been washed for days.

“I will need to have your research approved by our funders,” his advisor says after some time, “but I believe this topic should be doable within your current access level to the site.”

Claude, despite months of tiptoeing and evasion, finds that he no longer cares. He walks out of Seteth’s office thinking only of suns and thrones and _is it talking about following in a physical or metaphorical sense?_

Throughout all of this, Byleth remains his pole star—the axis around which his effort rotates. She meets him in the early mornings to watch him practice at the range. Continues to come in for tea at three o’clock on the dot. Over text, he sends her links to events on campus, and like clockwork, she shows up, waiting for him without fail. Each time, her expression is a little less stony than the last. Occasionally, it even slips into a smile.

_Win Conditions:_  
_\- Gain Byleth’s trust so that she reveals her hand willingly_  
_\- Gather enough evidence, then force or trick her to come clean_

Claude doesn’t ask her about the words on the throne. He doesn’t want to—at least, not yet. In a selfish way, the phrase feels as if it belongs to him, the one thing he knows that she doesn’t, so he clings to it like the last perfectly straight arrow in a quiver. He’ll coax the knowledge out of her somehow if he needs to, but for now, it is his puzzle to solve.

Follow the sun.

To go or come after. A heavenly body, the brightest star.

  
☼☼☼

Three weeks pass, and on a late Friday afternoon, the setting sun and crimson autumn leaves find Claude wiping tables at the Co-op. There are only a few of them left for the day—Claude, Edelgard, and one lone customer hunched over her laptop in the corner—and it is cool enough inside that they’ve bundled up under their scarves and jackets. Taking stock of items beneath the cafe’s mumbling speaker, Edelgard idly hums a tune from some song several decades old. It’s a rare, unexpected sound—slow and soothing in a way that his friend is certainly not—and as he watches the afternoon shadows inch across the fishpond-turned-courtyard, Claude feels his eyelids grow heavier and heavier.

_Does the phrase have something to do with how the sun tracks over Garreg Mach? Maybe it leads to a specific part of the monastery?_

Ten minutes to five, Edelgard closes her ledger and sets down her pen.

“Go home and get some rest, Claude. I can close shop myself.”

“Feeling generous today, aren’t we?” Claude pushes a stray chair back underneath its table. “A couple minutes overtime won’t hurt. I've got some plans tonight on campus anyways.”

“Are these plans with Byleth?”

“Who?” Claude asks, not missing a beat.

Edelgard gives him a sly look. “Don’t be coy. I heard from Mercedes that a very pretty girl has been visiting your shifts this past month. Green hair? Dresses like she’s not a student? It’s a shame she didn’t come in today.”

_Meeting with the research team_ , Claude’s mind supplies internally. _Two to four_.

“I have a lot of regulars, Edelgard. You can’t expect me to hang out with them during my free time.”

“I’ve also heard this girl has been seen with you getting lunch in the mess hall,” his friend continues, undeterred. “And that the two of you attended one of Dimitri’s games together. You’ve also been spotted at other events, like last week’s guest lecture on early cultural diplomacy.”

Claude holds up a hand in surrender. “Lemme guess. Lysithea?”

Edelgard is almost smug. “You know I never reveal my sources.”

Lysithea, his sleep-addled brain wants to say, is not the most discreet informant in the Golden Deer household. He knows all about the messages she exchanged with Edelgard regarding his concussion because, for one thing, Lysithea in all her shortness is far too unaware of people who loom over her while she’s texting. But this is the kind of information Claude knows will send Edelgard into a sputtering, embarrassed fit, so instead he holds that card close, for later. 

“If you must know, I’ve been working with Byleth for my thesis. Research takes time.”

“Oh? You’re quite the talented multi-tasker, then, fitting research into your lunch breaks.” She leans back in her chair and raises a brow. “And hockey games.” 

Claude grins lazily. “What can I say? I’m a busy boy.”

Edelgard rolls her eyes, but there is a smile on her face when she turns away to look at the clock. “I suppose I am grateful that you still take shifts here despite your new preoccupation. Will you two be at the library tonight?”

“Actually, I’ve decided that we needed a little break. We’ll be watching the musical at Ylisse Hall.” He thinks of the tickets sitting in his wallet. Of what Byleth’s expression will be when the curtain rises and the subject matter of the performance dawns upon her. Despite himself, he almost smiles.

“Dorothea’s production?”

“Yup. You going too?”

She’s silent for a moment. Crosses, then uncrosses her ankles beneath her chair. “No. I’ve never been interested in this particular work. I may stop by the afterparty later, once I take care of what I need to at the lab.”

“Suit yourself.” Claude looks to the lone customer remaining in the room. “Bernadetta, we close early on Fridays. You okay finishing up what you’re working on soon?”

The girl cringes. “A-almost!” Fingers fly rapidly over her laptop keys, but Claude’s gut tells him that it’ll be awhile before she moves. Even when struck by inspiration, writers can be terribly slow.

“I’ll make sure Bernie leaves before I lock up, ” Edelgard insists. “Now go meet your date.”

Claude twitches at the word ‘date.’ “Then I shall leave everything in your very capable hands,” he says, feigning a tortured sigh. 

He collects his things from the backroom, pauses to wash his face at the minisink in the corner. The fact that he spends extra seconds scrutinizing himself in the mirror—picking at the lint on his clothes, smoothing down the cowlicks in his hair—doesn’t escape him. 

Byleth is waiting for him outside the theater hall, standing lovely and still against one of the marble pillars. He almost doesn’t notice her at first, too busy scrolling his phone through an article on analemmata—a figure-eight path traced by 365 days worth of a sun’s minute movements. Another one of many possible leads that, by this point, he’s afraid will turn up nothing. 

“Homework again?” she asks, peering at his phone. Claude locks the screen and slips the device into his pocket. 

“Just about wrapped up. Sorry about the delay. Did I keep you waiting long?” This time, it takes only a few seconds for Byleth to take the arm he cheekily offers her; even her usual cocked brow gives off little heat.

“Not really,” she says. “I’ve been reading this to pass the time.” In her hands is the playbill, which she opens up to a random page.

> SYNOPSIS  
>  Garreg Mach, UY 800. At the dawn of a new century, a young woman finds herself embroiled with a vicious turf war between three gangs. When she chooses to enter an alliance with one of the gang’s bosses to stop the bloodshed, how will the wheels of fate turn? An adaptation of Casagranda’s _Sword of Dawn_ for modern times, the _Edge of Dawn_ asks what we’re willing to sacrifice for peace.
> 
> CAST  
>  (in order of appearance)
> 
> Dorothea Adesso…The Narrator  
>  Annette Fontaine… Beles  
>  Lorenz Hellman ... The Duke  
>  Ferdinand Vanir … The Emperor
> 
> […]

Claude tenses, but Byleth’s only comment is, “The actor’s bios were interesting.”

“Have you seen the original opera?” he asks as they wander inside. A pimply-faced freshman takes their tickets at the door and points them up the stairs to the mezzanine.

“Once,” says Byleth. “That was enough for me.”

The show starts nine minutes late with all the charming aplomb of an amateur production, the sudden swell of the orchestra its only warning. When the lights finally dim, a woman dressed in glittering regalia practically floats her way downstage. The gold headpiece in her deep brown hair glows like a halo of afternoon sun under the spotlight, and from her mouth, a single, powerful note calls the audience to attention.

Even as the theater comes alive, never once does Claude’s attention stray from Byleth. By now, reading her microexpressions comes to him so easily that it’s almost a game. Ten points for catching her amusement during Lorenz and Ferdinand’s passionate duet about the ideals of leadership. Twenty for the mild disbelief as Annette weaves a crown of flowers onstage, singing in a sweet high soprano. 

(“This is supposed to be Beles?” Byleth whispers.

Claude whispers back, innocently, “The all-loving queen? How else should they portray her?”)

At the end of the first act, Claude’s exhaustion begins to get the better of him. He struggles to stay awake through intermission. Tries his hardest to maintain a conversation with Byleth, who is more interested in the stage design than the contents of the musical itself.

But minutes after the second act begins, he succumbs. In his dream, a cool ocean wind brushes his face. The smell of pine incense sits sharp on his tongue. Byleth is there with him too, bundled in a golden coat and gazing contently as the sun sets over a city of canals and white stone. Quietly, she hums an indescribable tune, of which he can make out only one word.

_Follow._

When he wakes, the musical is well into its finale. Counterpoint melodies battle for dominance as the lyrics and actors act out glimpses of Beles’s future. A peaceful city. A loving relationship with the Duke.

Then, at the peak of its sound, the orchestra drops. Actors step backwards into the shadows. A hush fills the air. Alone in the spotlight, Dorothea turns like a music box winding down to notes that he cannot hear. When she stops, her gaze turns upwards, toward the heavens, toward him, and from her whole body, a mournful sound rises.

_—but,_  
_Do you remember, my dear,_  
_How you used to be friends?_  
_How much have you lost,_  
_To now live this way?_  
_At the edge of dawn,_  
_I’ll still be here_  
_To recall what we’ve done_  
_For this world that we made._

Silence falls. Then, heartbeats later, a roar of applause rumbles the theater like an earthquake. The cast scurry onto the stage for their bows, bright-eyed and flushed. Eager friends in orchestra seating throw flower and candy bouquets. The tide of frenetic energy carries Claude onto his feet, but when he looks to Byleth, eager for her reaction, the noise turns quickly into static.

Byleth is crying. 

  
☼☼☼

> [...]
> 
> **So the Narrator isn’t supposed to be the Goddess after all?**
> 
> Each Narrator interprets it differently! There’s a lot of debate about it, but we have to remember that the musical’s source material, _The Sword of Dawn_ , had no mention of the Goddess at all. So for my performance, I played the Narrator as an older Beles contemplating her actions. The back and forth between myself and Annette is easily my favorite dynamic in the musical because of this. Beles goes through a lot of inner turmoil, and it’s reflected best through this kind of meta-relationship.
> 
> **Speaking of inner turmoil, something that fans always look forward to in this musical is how the Narrator’s final words are interpreted by the director and the cast. Rumor has it you’ve done your own special arrangement just for this show.**
> 
> Maybe! It’ll be a little different than what most people are used to, but you’ll have to attend the show to hear it.
> 
> **Would you be willing to share your thought process at least?**
> 
> Only if you don’t mind a long-winded answer.
> 
> **Of course not!**
> 
> So on the 850th anniversary of _The Sword of Dawn_ , the Royal Family released a digital scan of the opera’s musical autograph online—one of the first drafts penned by Casagranda herself. In the margins of the finale’s score, Casagranda wrote about how she based the song off a draft left behind by a former student who died during the Siege of Embarr. Can you imagine? This woman writing and writing until the war itself was at her front door...
> 
> What a lot of people don’t know is that _The Sword of Dawn_ ’s finale ran into a lot of controversy when it first came out. It was originally mournful and reflective, not triumphant. But Casagranda had to change it, understandably, because Fodlan at the time wasn’t in the right place to think about the war in that light. And for better or for worse, that interpretation of the opera stuck. When it premiered over a decade ago, _The Edge of Dawn_ stood out from all the adaptations that came before it because it directly responded to that shift in our society. To our ability to look at history in a different light. The songs, written as modern adaptations of the opera’s verses, reflect these challenges of perspective.
> 
> But I’ll admit—I’m not a historian. Mulling on different interpretations of history isn’t what inspires me as an actor. For me, it’s the thought of Casagranda’s student. I feel like I owe it to this woman to sing what she never got to in the way she intended us to hear it. That’s the feeling I’m chasing after in this performance, and I hope that’s the feeling that the audience walks away with after.
> 
> _Dorothea Adesso is a GMU senior majoring in musical performance with a minor in education._

Mori, Olivia _._ “Chasing the Dawn: Rising star Adesso explores history and memory in GMU’s fall theater production.” _The Owl Feather_. Wyvern Moon 11, UY870. https://www.theowlfeatheratgmu.com/UY870/WM/11/interviews/349586

  
  


☼☼☼

  
  


The theater lobby is nearly vacant by the time Byleth emerges from the restroom. Even with the faint ring of red around her eyes, she looks impeccable, but to Claude, there’s something else about her that feels unnervingly empty. Like a once-full water glass tipped over onto its side.

“How’re you feeling?” Claude asks.

“Alright.”

“Need me to take you home?”

“No.” 

“But you don’t want to be here, either,” he guesses. 

No response. 

Claude wracks his brain, pulling from his reserve of ideas. “How about we go to the Village, then? It’s not as good as Gatekeeper’s, but I know a place that serves some mean fish and chips.”

To his relief, a glimmer of interest lights in Byleth’s eyes.

The Village is a quaint residential neighborhood a little ways down the mountain. In the distant past, merchants would stop at the Village to rest while traveling to the monastery. Now all the neighborhood sees are the university’s freshmen, either too scared, broke, or lazy to take the monorail into downtown for their night of wild partying. Each weekend, they congregate on the long street of mom-and-pop shops that bisects several blocks of sleepy residences; the restaurants and nearby overlooks of the city often top the list of favorite GMU date spots each year. 

From the window of a grimy, all-night diner, Claude and Byleth watch group after group filter down from the university, their laughter muffled by the sound of chewing and the rustle of oily fries on butcher paper. It would be a lie, Claude knows, to say that he didn’t consider the possibility of Byleth crying tonight. It was one of the many possible results of the logic he applies to their outings:

_This activity would make X act like Y._

_If Z = X, then Z would act like Y._

It’s shoddy logic, yes—full of holes and unspoken ‘maybe’s. But conventional logic never seems to work with Byleth. Perhaps at some point he had convinced himself that it wasn’t physically possible for her to cry. Yet now, it’s the guilt that he can’t quite reason away—that nagging feeling that he, perhaps, may have gone a little too far in choosing an activity that so personally highlights the successes and follies of Queen Beles’s life. Even if it does so indirectly.

The research ethics board would have a field day with my methods, Claude thinks, chewing slowly.

Byleth licks the salt off her fingers, then places a crumpled napkin in the empty red plastic basket in front of her. Realizing that she’s waiting for him, Claude quickly finishes his own fries and stacks their baskets together.

“Good, right?”

She nods.

“Have you ever been to the Village before?”

“No,” she says.

A group of eight freshmen pass by their window, talking loudly of relationship drama and weekend plans. Floormates, no doubt. The Golden Deer used to do that too: pacing up and down the street on a late Friday night, menacing the shops with their banter and noncommittal browsing. Hilda was usually the instigator; every little inconvenience in her day was an excuse to go shopping.

“Let’s wander a bit,” he says, feeling inspired. “We’re already here, so might as well.” 

Even if it’s late, he owes her a little fun after making her cry.

The two of them go shop by shop up the street. They squeeze through aisles overflowing with antique knick knacks. Bump their heads against glittering mobiles that hang from the ceiling, jump-starting orbits around shining brass stars. A few doors down, they try samples of old, smelly cheese from the furthest reaches of Faerghus, then olive oil from groves in Adrestia. At the thrift shop, they sift through clothing racks that smell like mothballs and inoffensive laundry detergent, pulling out outfits and debating what kind of person would have owned them in the past.

“So you’re saying that most of your wardrobe is from Doctor Flayn’s closet?”

Byleth puts on a cap that says ‘#1 Fisherman’ and inspects herself in a mirror. “Was it obvious?”

“Not that obvious. But they never seemed to be your style, to be honest.” From the racks, Claude pulls out a quilted motorcycle jacket made of faux leather. “How about this?”

Ten minutes later, they walk out of the store—Byleth, with her new jacket. Claude, with an empty wallet. “A gift,” he insists, soothing the ache of his hurting bank account by watching the careful way Byleth tucks herself into her new jacket. 

The street ends on a series of bars that overflow with faces too young to have any business with alcohol and bouncers too blasé to care about a fake ID or two. He prepares to pivot them back to the restaurant where his motorcycle is parked—maybe we can stop by one of the overlooks on the way, he thinks—but no sooner does he place the weight on his heel, a voice calls out from behind him.

“Claude?”

Edelgard and Lysithea, walking up the sidewalk, approach the two of them with almost identical looks of curiosity. Byleth’s shoulders tense so quickly that he instinctively places a hand on her back to reassure her. The act feels like lightning jumping through his veins; even Byleth looks a little stunned.

“Why, hello there!” Claude recalls his hand to his side. “Things all squared away in the lab?”

To say that Edelgard ignores him would understate her complete lack of interest in his existence at that moment. She beelines straight to Byleth, stopping a step or two within what most people would claim as their personal space, and offers out her hand for a handshake.

“I’m Edelgard. I take it you must be the infamous Byleth?” 

Byleth’s eyes narrow. “How do you know my name?”

“I’ve heard much about you from Claude.” Edelgard’s hand remains outstretched. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

Byleth stares at the other woman blankly. Edelgard stares stubbornly back. For as long as Claude’s known her, Edelgard has never backed down from anything. But Byleth herself is equally unflappable. The air between them is electric. It’s like watching physics in action—the immovable object, the unstoppable force. 

“Well, _I’m_ going to interrupt something, because I’m hungry.” Lysithea huffs. That seems to knock some sense into Edelgard, who withdraws her hand to instead pat the younger girl on the head—a surprisingly affectionate gesture, one that Claude recognizes from Edelgard’s interactions with her siblings.

He clears his throat. “Heading to the afterparty, then?”

“Yes,” says Edelgard. “Will the two of you be joining us?”

The image of Byleth crying re-emerges from the muddy waters of his subconscious. “I was actually thinking of going home, to be honest. We’ve been out for a while.”

“Pity. I’m sure the cast would appreciate feedback directly from their audience.”

“A drink or two wouldn’t hurt,” says Byleth. Both Claude and Edelgard turn to her in surprise. Even as Claude prods her to elaborate, Byleth’s expression remains aggressively neutral.

The afterparty is at the only bar on the street with a karaoke machine—a grimy place with an interior aesthetic of neon glow on beer stained wood—which, really, Claude should have suspected from the beginning. Sure enough, a group of familiar faces have sprawled themselves across the couches by the stage, crowding the available song books like birds flitting in and out for a chance at the large crumb of food. Dorothea practically flings herself off the stage mid-song to hug both Edelgard and Claude when she spots them, causing the rest of the group to put their chatter on hold.

Introductions happen quickly and chaotically. “This is Ferdie,” Dorothea says. “He’s only a tiny bit less dramatic in person than he is on stage. Surely you must know Lorenz if you’re friends with Claude? Annette here is our guiding light. Don’t let her say otherwise, she’s far too modest. In the back over there is Dedue, our stage manager, and oh—you know Ingrid? She’s not part of the crew, she’s just here to support me. Oh Ingrid, dear, why didn’t you tell me about Claude’s new friend?”

On and on it goes. It’s enough to make even Claude’s head spin, but Byleth handles it with grace. She gifts each cast and crew member a compliment on their work. Actual compliments, even—tailored with such attention to detail that Claude wonders if Byleth had been taking notes during the performance. And one by one, in predictable fashion, they are caught in her gravitational pull. Just like his archery team, just like his paintball squad. A pattern of repeating results that tell him everything and nothing.

It’s difficult to get a hold of Byleth after that. Sipping water at a table with fellow designated driver Dedue, Claude watches the group cajole her into taking shots, at which she excels despite Ferdinand’s pleas for mercy. They fail to get her singing on stage, but she gives in to keeping a serviceable accompanying beat on the tambourine. They ask her question after nosy question, and it is only the quiet look of amusement on her face that stops him from intervening.

This is what he was hoping for, wasn’t it? The emptiness in her seems to have been filled. An emptiness he caused to begin with. Have there been other times like this? he wonders. Moments he hadn’t noticed because he wasn’t as knowledgeable, because he couldn’t read her the way he can now?

The thought leaves him with something uncomfortable sitting in his stomach. When he gets up to grab more water to wash it away, he finds that his finger has been tracing calligraphy in the condensation left on the table.

_Follow the sun._

The room has grown crowded since their arrival. Juniors and seniors, sloshed from their adventures downtown and looking for their second wind, swarm the pool tables and jostle for space at the bar. After spending a few minutes fighting through the thick of it, Claude manages to make his way to the counter and flags the bartender with a raise of his arm. In the space he creates, Edelgard slides right beside him.

“I’d like to close my tab,” she says. The bartender sets down Claude’s water, then after a few quick punches in the register, slides over Edelgard’s credit card wrapped in its receipt.

“Two drinks before calling it quits? I believe that’s a record, Miss Edelgard.”

“I still don’t understand the appeal of getting drunk in public,” she sighs, signing her receipt with a sharp stroke of the pen. “I thought I could at least catch up with Hubert, but it appears his shift here is on another night.”

“Come on, you sure you won’t miss this? The rowdy freshmen, the sticky squish your shoes make when you walk across the room...”

Edelgard wrinkles her nose and tucks her card back in her wallet. “No, I’m pretty sure I won’t.”

“You know,” says Claude, sipping his water. “I hear Lorg Mor in Dagda’s got a great wine bar across their new biomed building. Clean furniture. A more ‘posh’ crowd.”

“Why, yes. In fact, they—“ She presses her lips together tightly. If Claude didn’t know better, he’d say Edelgard almost looks guilty, rather than embarrassed. She always did hate walking straight into one of his set-ups.

He forces himself to grin. “So that’s where you’re going for grad school, huh? I had a feeling.”

“How?”

“Picture that you posted during your family trip this summer. Napkin with the bar’s logo on it. You know, the one with the sun and the moon.” Claude shakes his head, feeling his thoughts wandering elsewhere. “Anyways, pro-tip: curate your social media if you want to actually keep a secret.”

Edelgard frowns. “It’s not a secret. It’s just not finalized yet. I still need to make it through the application stage.”

“That’s like saying Lysithea isn’t going to have the FAU’s top five med schools groveling at her feet come spring.”

Through gaps in the crowd, they watch the younger girl attempting a sip of Byleth’s whisky and failing miserably, the smell repelling her before her lips even touch the glass. “Even if they take me far from here, I have goals that I need to attend to,” Edelgard says. Unexpectedly, her face softens. “But that doesn’t mean I won’t try to enjoy my time here while I can. I owe that to everyone else, at least.”

She downs the remainder of her drink and sets the glass onto the bar for the bartender to take. “I’d ask you if you finally made any progress on deciding your plans, but I feel like you’ve been too preoccupied this semester to think of them.” 

“Meaning?”

“Are you sure you and Byleth aren’t dating?” Edelgard looks genuinely troubled. “I’d hate to think I ruined my first impression with her if you are. You rarely take romantic interest in people as it is.” 

He resists the urge to pat her on the head. “We’re not dating.”

“Oh? Then why does it feel like you’re hiding something?”

Claude swirls his water. Watches the ice cubes travel in a perfect orbit at the bottom of his glass.“Cross-examination was always your favorite period during debate, wasn’t it? Always so ruthless.”

“That’s quite the projection, Claude. If your rebuttals weren’t so lacking, then perhaps I wouldn’t feel as compelled to push you.”

Now where has he heard that before? Their high school debate tryout, perhaps. At least once per practice, surely. “She’s simply a fascinating person,” he concedes to his former rival. “Besides, I figure by observing her and her work, I’ll better understand what I need to do to get into my field.”

Edelgard nods in approval, taking his lip service at face value. “That’s surprisingly future-oriented of you, Claude. Everyone needs a mentor.” She tilts her head in thought. “If she is just your mentor, then perhaps I should make my own move on her sometime.”

Claude tenses, then scowls. Edelgard hums to herself, smug.

Somewhere in the crowd, Lysithea shrieks.

Edelgard is gone before Claude can even put down his water. As dense as the crowd is, he hears the argument before he sees it, and by the time he reaches the two of them, a ring of spectators has already closed in.

“For the last time,” says Edelgard, “she didn’t pour that drink on you. _You_ bumped into _her_.”

The man she is talking to is too old to be a student. Half of his hair sits like spikey tufts of hay on his head; the other half lives on his lip in a pretentiously curled mustache. Acheron—the name comes to Claude when he notices the man’s tightly pressed suit and the expensive sun-gold wristwatch, both now drenched in sugary cocktail. Adjunct in the business and economics department, if he remembers correctly. Claude wrinkles his nose in disgust.

“She owes me for all the personal items that she ruined,” the man retorts, leering in a way that belies the amount of alcohol in his system. Yet even as he complains about Lysithea, all of Acheron’s attention fixates on Edelgard. “I know who you are, Miss Edelgard Krahne; every faculty member does. I have friends in the higher admin that would love to write you up for all the headaches you cause them if you don’t step aside. And wouldn’t that be a predicament for your graduate school plans?”

Edelgard hesitates. But after the moment of weakness, she holds herself firm. Chin up, eyes blazing. “Is this how a professor conducts himself off campus?” she scowls. “How despicable.”

Acheron raises his hand, open-palmed, angled for a quick downstroke of violence. Claude shoves his way through the onlookers just as it falls, but in the end, there is no slap. There is only Byleth, holding the man’s wrist high above his head. Behind her, Dorothea and Annette attempt to usher Lysithea and Edelgard into the safety of the crowd, but Edelgard stands rooted to her spot, transfixed.

“ _You’re_ a professor?” The disbelief in Byleth’s voice betrays the tight thread of control holding her expression together.

“Yes. Now let go of me.”Acheron attempts to wrench his arm from the woman’s grasp, but her hand only closes tighter.

“What kind of professor bullies their students?”

“Bullying? I am teaching them a life lesson on the consequences of their actions.” 

Byleth frowns. “Then let me teach you a lesson about forgiveness. You apologize. I let your threats slide.”

“Oh please.” Acheron rolls his eyes. “If you were a teacher, you’d understand that sometimes that kind of thing is necessary.”

In a split second, Claude knows that this man made a terrible mistake. 

Byleth spins Archeron around and pins him to the table, face first in a different spilt drink. Several phones rise up in the crowd to start recording. “Perhaps you’re the one who needs a lesson in consequence,” she observes.

“You wouldn’t dare,” the man hisses.

“Oh?” The ice in Byleth’s voice thrums a chord of excitement in Claude’s chest. “Allow me to demonstrate.”

With a flick of Byleth’s arm, Acheron goes flying across the table and into a game of pool happening nearby. The crowd scatters, a few of them knocking Edelgard and Lysithea to the floor. Byleth reaches down to help, offering her hand to Edelgard, but when their eyes meet, Edelgard slaps it away, the sharp sound piercing through the noise of the already chaotic room. 

The two women look at each other astonished. Their hands linger in the air with nowhere else to go. At that moment, someone’s voice whispers then fades in Claude’s head before he can commit it to memory. 

_I wanted to walk with you._

“Edelgard?” Lysithea whispers.

“I-I’m sorry.” Edelgard stares at the floor. “It must have been a reflex.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Claude notices the bartender reach behind the bar for the landline. He seizes Byleth’s hand, which breaks her from her spell. 

“Byleth, we gotta get a move on.” He tugs on her hand for emphasis. “Now.”

They run out of the bar and to Claude’s motorcycle down the street. Fly straight down the mountain then south on the freeway, towards Byleth’s neighborhood in Canopus. He takes the wrong exit off onto Sunset Boulevard, and instead of the monorail station, where he picked her up last, they end up in a lot next to the neighborhood’s man-made lake.

After Claude pulls into a parking spot right next to the water and turns off his engine, the silence of the empty boardwalk rushes in all at once. It takes a moment for Byleth to untangle her arms from around him, but when she does dismount, it’s with a grace near impossible for someone with that much alcohol in her system.

_Mental Notes on Byleth:_  
_\- Godly drinker._  
_\- May or may not have tossed someone completely sober._

“I really shouldn’t have done that.” Byleth sighs as she removes her helmet. “Seteth will not be happy dealing with the fallout.”

“Funny,” Claude chuckles as he unclips his own. “I never got the impression you care much about what Seteth thinks.”

The woman shrugs. “You’re not wrong. But still.”

“What? Don’t find putting assholes in their place exciting?”

“It’s not a question of excitement,” she says, even as the corners of her mouth twitch upwards.

“Ah, so you do like it!” He crows. “Here’s hoping I have you on my side during the next bar fight.”

The woman frowns. “Are you planning to start any?”

Claude winks. “Well, if it’s the only way I get to see you throw another dude across a table...”

For the first time in a long while, Byleth chuckles. Pressing her helmet to her stomach, she wanders and takes a seat at the boardwalk’s edge. Claude, sensing the unspoken invitation, follows. Their feet dangle inches above the water. The Wyvern Moon shines full and silver on the artificial lake’s glassy surface. A reflection of a reflection, desaturated sunlight.

_Perhaps I’m looking at the phrase from the wrong angle. What if it’s tied to moonlight somehow, what if—_

“Will you be alright driving back home this late?” Byleth asks, startling him from his thoughts.

“I’ll admit, it’s tempting to just fall asleep right here and now.” With a yawn, Claude lets himself fall backwards onto the boardwalk. “Never knew this place could be so peaceful.”

“Claude…”

The woman is frowning, but her eyes are not. They’re distant—the same as the time they first locked eyes in Seteth’s office—but rather than past him, her gaze floods into him. Rushing into the crevices between every last atom, wearing him down until there’s nothing but his basic elements laid bare. 

Claude shivers. He’ll never get used to that.

“Penny for your thoughts?” he asks.

“You’d have to pay a lot more than that,” Byleth murmurs, playing along. Claude is stunned.

“I’m sure that can be arranged.” He rolls onto his side and props his head up with his hand. “Name your price.”

“Free tea for a month.” The response is so quick that it nearly gives Claude whiplash.

“Hold on, not even I can promise that. You’ve met Edelgard, she’d have my head!”

“I’m sure you‘ll figure out something. You always seem to manage somehow.”

Normally when Claude hears those words strung together, it’s from Hilda as she dumps chores on him last-minute. Or Lorenz, refusing to help him escape the consequences of some botched scheme. Those things, he can handle. The sincerity in Byleth’s voice, the genuine fondness in her smile? He can’t.

“Thank you,” Byleth says, only making it harder.

“For what?”

“For getting me out of the bar. For making sure I was okay at the theater. But more importantly, for making time for me these past few weeks. I know you’ve been running ragged with your school work.”

Claude scratches the back of his neck. “We had a deal, didn’t we?” 

“Deals aren’t worth your sanity.” A pause. “Did I startle you when I cried?”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about.” Claude rolls from his side onto his back. “Besides, Dorothea really pulled out all the stops on that ending. I probably would’ve been bawling my eyes out too if I wasn’t half asleep.”

“I wasn’t sad.” Her head tilts in thought. “At least, not entirely.” 

This gets him to sit up. “Oh?”

“If anything, I was proud.” She leans back, as if searching for something in the cloudless night sky. “I looked on that stage and saw a cast of bright young people talented and ambitious enough to make their dreams come true. It was...inspiring.”

It is hard to see stars this far down into the valley, he wants to tell her. Instead, with a certainty that surprises him, he says, “So you used to be a teacher.”

The woman stills. “What gave it away?”

“The whole throwing Acheron over a pool table felt a little personal, to be honest. Also, no one gets that emotional about college kids living out their dreams unless they’re a teacher or a parent.” 

Byleth chuckles at that. Good. 

“Do you still teach?”

“No.”

“Why’d you stop?”

“I had other obligations. Callings.”

“What would you say your calling is after the research team wraps up?”

Claude expects her to evade, but instead she says, “I don’t know. Seteth told me to just take it day by day, so that’s what I’m doing.” She stops looking at the sky. Curls one leg up to her chest and wraps her arms around it. “At the very least it’s been fun, thanks to you.”

He cocks a brow. “Brawl fights and all?”

“Did it not seem like I‘ve been enjoying our outings?” She asks with her usual deadpan stare.

It occurs to him then that he doesn’t know if it did or not. Enjoyment was never the goal, just the means to an end. Calculations, logic. Does it matter that Byleth enjoys her time during his little experiment? That she smiles a little more each time she sees him? Such quiet, infinitesimal movements—dictated by joy in the same simple way gravity leads the earth around the sun.

Terrifyingly, in some kernel of truth buried deep within himself, he suspects that it might matter after all.

“Just wanted to make sure you aren’t shackling yourself to me because of some arbitrary deal,” Claude attempts to explain. But despite his efforts, his next words come out unbearably small. “I can’t imagine that you enjoy hanging out with a bunch of college kids.”

“On the contrary. I haven’t had this much fun in a long time.” A smile blooms on Byleth’s face. Not a hint or a glance of one—a true smile, blinding in its splendor. “Besides. You’re a fascinating person, Claude. I like getting to know you.”

And there’s that feeling again. That feeling of fight or flight, of when an arrow hits its target with a resounding thud. Warmth spreads up his neck to face, and he looks up to the sky, hiding his blush by looking for stars that aren’t there. The two of them sit in silence for many moments, watching clouds overtake the reflection of the moon in the lake. A cool breeze, chilled by the water, tousles Claude’s hair. Then, quietly, Byleth begins to hum a familiar tune.

“Is that one of the songs they sang at the bar?” he asks.

The woman wraps her new jacket closer to herself. “No. It just popped in my head.”

“You know,” he teases. “I never got to hear you sing while we were there.”

“It’s because I’m not a singer,” says Byleth, fiddling with the sleeves of her jacket.

“Well, it’s just you and me now. No actors to judge you. I’d say sing till your heart’s content.”

Byleth sighs, and for a moment, Claude worries that he pushed too hard again. But then, she starts, so quiet that he almost doesn’t hear the first few words. She’s right, he realizes quickly. She’s not a singer. Her voice is rough and dry; her pitch struggles to stay consistent. But something about it comforts him. It tempts him into slumber even as his mind shouts at him to pay attention.

_Run through deep forests of silver pine._  
_Catch a shooting star and watch it shine._  
_Ride the wind over an open sea._  
_Beneath the moon, will you think of me?_

_Love, lay down your head._  
_These battles are won._  
_And in the morning,_  
_May you follow the sun._

All Claude can hear after that is his mind grinding to a sudden stop. If Byleth notices his shock, she says nothing. She keeps on singing, her only audience the silver moon and the starless sky.

☼☼☼

If Claude had learned anything from that night at the theater, he would have told Byleth about the engraving while sitting there on that boardwalk. He would have offered to investigate it with her. Perhaps make an outing of it. Claude and Byleth, mystery solvers. She would have enjoyed that.

This is what happens instead.

He goes to the tomb the following Monday. Practically begs Byleth to take him there, which she does in a heartbeat. As they descend in the elevator, Claude notices that she’s wearing the leather jacket he bought her on Friday. This should be his first sign to turn back.

He doesn’t.

To his credit, he tries to show some discretion. He waits until she’s occupied elsewhere to climb his way up to the dias. Waits till he’s alone with the throne to start murmuring whatever lyrics he can remember from Byleth’s song.

How is he supposed to know that the tomb would start shaking once he finishes? That he’d be knocked to the ground with such force that, for a moment, he is wholeheartedly sure that he’s going to die? This isn’t how he’d hoped he would go—buried in the remains of a tomb that had already failed to take him once. Alone.

But then, the shaking stops. Behind the throne, a new opening in the floor reveals a set of stone steps that descend into the dark. Claude scrambles to his feet. By the time his mind registers Byleth calling for him from the audience chamber, he’s already halfway down the steps.

The opening leads to a small room, which he illuminates with the flashlight on his phone. Ancient particles swim in the air, clogging his lungs and his vision. The ceiling hangs low enough that he can disturb the dirt overhead with the very tips of his fingers. At the center of the room, a small stone table sits, littered with trinkets. Hairpieces and well-worn whetstones. A rectangular package wrapped in leather, laid atop a scarf of green, black, and gold. But it’s the items in the back that grab his attention.

First, a bow, taller than he is. A circular indent on its riser, where a jewel might be set, is cracked and empty. Then, behind that, a sword of similar make—dull ivory with ridges like a spine’s.

The set of footsteps he was trying not to hear descending down the stairs come to a sudden stop behind him.

After seeing her cry on the weekend, Claude had begun to think that he’d finally gotten a handle on all the emotional curveballs Byleth could throw at him. But when he turns and takes in the expression on her face, he realizes that there is one more emotion he hasn’t yet accounted for.

Pain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! Thank you so, so much for your patience. I know I said I would try to get chapters out at least once a month, but it’s looking like I’ll be posting on more of an every-other-month schedule. Huge thanks to my partner for looking this over and helping me finagle those lyrics.
> 
> This chapter was tough to write for many (mostly IRL) reasons; I’ve been sitting on it for a while, and to be honest, it still isn’t where I want it to be. There were a lot of things that I wanted to do with the theater kids in the bar (it’s such a waste to have Ferdinand and Lorenz in the same room and not do something hilarious), but ultimately other parts of the scene needed attention. Still, I needed to finally get this out there, so I can focus on moving forward!
> 
> As always, thanks for the comments and feedback!


	6. lonesome dreams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: grief, mild drunkenness, some discussion of past major character death, brief discussion of burial practices

Love,  
I return myself to the wind.  
On wings, I follow thee  
into our promised dawn.

Unknown. “The Tombless Epitaph.” _Stone Relief Depicting The Sky Burial of Khalid the Unifier._ UY 70, Museum of Fodlan-Almyra History, Fodlan’s Locket.

☼☼☼

At twenty-two years old, Claude Amir Nasim knows very little of grief.

He came close to understanding once, after the Embassy attack in Sreng. His mother woke from her injuries first; his father, the kind of man who enjoys life at a more leisurely pace, laid comatose for a few extra weeks. In waiting for him, Claude and his mother would find themselves gravitating to objects and spaces around their home. The antique armchair with its tattered upholstery and an unfinished book draped on its arm; the dirty mug under the kitchen windows, only inches away from the sink. Claude knows now that theirs was an anticipatory sort of mourning. The kind where you hoard every memory you can and tuck them away in the oddest of places, just in case.

Years later, in a tiny underground room with a woman as untouchable as the stars, Claude watches the reverse occur. As Byleth approaches him, he half expects something else to happen. Another earth-shattering rumble. Another room opening into another set of secrets.

But it seems that even for someone like her, remembrance is as mundane as lifting a lid off a shoebox. He recognizes it in the way her face tightens. In the fog that glazes over her eyes and the words she does not say to him. An almost imperceptible energy crackles as she breezes past—conversations between Byleth and this space that Claude can never hope to hear.

They traverse the room together in silence. Byleth, pausing every few steps to kneel at an artifact like a woman in prayer. Claude, trailing a few paces behind. Not once does she look at him. He might as well be a shadow—just a ghost among the many that haunt this tomb. 

When they come upon the weapons rack, the woman stills. Claude waits for her to say something until, eventually, he can’t.

“Kind of takes your breath away, doesn’t it?”

No response. Claude clears his throat and fixes his attention on the bow and the sword. The historian in him knows that he should be looking to the sword. But it’s the other weapon that catches his eye. An odd sense of longing overtakes him as his mind churns questions faster than his eyes can take in details. Bone or wood? Hollow or solid? Extrapolation propels Claude to the conclusion that anyone with his name should find this bow special. As familiar as a childhood daydream. 

_Failnaught. The bow that can shatter the stars._

“Don’t.”

The anger in Byleth’s voice breaks him free from his thoughts. Claude notices his hand hovering near the bow and brings it to his side, sheepish. The woman’s eyes, glinting in the phonelight, are someone else’s now, ancient and bone weary.

Shadows flicker as others finally make their way down the stairs. Someone gasps. Another shines a second phone into the dark, flooding the room with more artificial light. Byleth retreats as more begin to stream inside, the clack of her heels on the stairs sharp beneath their excited buzzing. Before Claude can follow her, a hand grabs him firmly by the arm—Seteth, his expression tight.

“Take Byleth with you above ground and stay there.”

“Shouldn’t you—“

“Now.”

Claude pushes his way through a sea of archeologists. In their eyes, he sees tenure. Their names immortalized under et. als in the monthly archives of prestigious publications. His disgust at their eagerness turns quickly into guilt. How was he any different ten minutes ago, throwing himself headfirst into his own agenda? 

Perhaps it is only karma, then, that Byleth is already gone by the time he resurfaces. Alone, he stares across at the layer of dirt and rubble and recalls, once again, the story of the man who spent a night in a palace beneath the waves. How he emerged from the ocean disoriented and scared, certain only of the fact that everything had changed. Unlike that man, Claude is certain of three things. 

First, that his dream of meeting Byleth in this tomb wasn’t just a dream.

Second, that Byleth and the legendary Queen Beles are one and the same.

And third, that he screwed up. Again. Big time.

☼☼☼

To: GMU Community  
From: GMU Campus Safety  
Date: Wyvern Moon 30, UY 870 3:30 PM  
Subject: ALERT - Shaking 

Localized shaking occurring at Garreg Mach University. If indoors, brace under desks or doorways, then evacuate to an outdoor space once shaking stops.

\---

To: GMU Community  
From: GMU Campus Safety  
Date: Wyvern Moon 30, UY 870 3:35 PM  
Subject: ALERT - All Clear

Shaking has stopped. All classes after 4:00 p.m. have been suspended as GMU Campus Safety inspects buildings for structural damage. 

\---

To: GMU Community  
From: GMU Campus Safety  
Date: Wyvern Moon 31, UY 870 10:30 AM  
Subject: NOTIFICATION - Unstable Stonework on Monastery Campus

GMU Campus Safety has identified several areas of minor structural damage to older stonework on Monastery Campus due to yesterday’s shaking.

For their safety, community members should avoid the following areas until further notice:

Greenhouse  
Tea Gardens  
South Battlements  
West Battlements  
Cathedral (Upper Floors, Rear Spires)

All unsafe areas will be cordoned with yellow construction tape.

\---

To: GMU Community  
From: GMU Campus Safety  
Date: Red Wolf Moon 6, UY 870 9:15 AM  
Subject: NOTIFICATION - Suspicious Individuals

Over the past few days, GMU Campus Safety has received reports of individuals not affiliated with GMU appearing in dorms and other student spaces. Upon questioning by campus security, these individuals confessed to seeking access to the archeological expedition beneath Monastery Campus. Many were staff from media outlets, and some were disguised as students.

Should you notice any suspicious individuals or activity, immediately contact GMU Campus Safety. All media inquiries should be directed to the GMU Office of Communications at communications@garregmach.edu

☼☼☼

For many days, Byleth all but disappears from existence. 

Texts and calls to her phone go unanswered. Unused sachets of Almyran Pine pile up beneath the Co-op’s counter. Just once, out of desperation, Claude visits the tomb, only to be accosted by reporters looking for access to the secrets below. His badge is revoked the next day by Seteth, who takes it in between meetings with university admin.

“I need you to focus on other things for now,” is all his advisor says.

Doing as he’s told chafes Claude even on his good days. But with Byleth out of reach, all he has is his other obligations. Archery practice, his Medieval Fodlan section, his shifts at the Co-op. The ease with which he breezes through these things startles him. It’s enough to make him wonder whether college was always like this. Whether he was simply drifting, waiting for someone like Byleth to come along. 

A week later, Claude finds himself alone on a Tuesday evening for the first time in months. He’s finished with his readings for every course through the end of the semester. Graded every paper, exhausted every possible keyword search for “Failnaught” and “The Sword of Dawn” before succumbing to the bitter realization that research has done little to take his mind off his guilt.

So instead he lies on the Golden Deer’s living room couch with his phone, engrossed with the new spare-time routine he’s fallen into. It goes like this: refresh phone for texts or email every five or so minutes. Then, scour social media for any trace of Byleth’s nonexistent online presence. There are miraculously two video clips of her, both from the bar fight, though they’re nothing more than a flash of her green hair.

At some point during this ritual, Hilda joins him. Her phone sits pressed between her shoulder and her ear, voice high and sweet in a way he only ever hears her use with one person.

“How’s your brother?” Claude asks after she hangs up.

“Oh, same old, same old. You’d think he could avoid pestering me whenever I call, but it was all: earthquake, this. Safety, that.”

“Awww, I’m sure he’s just worried about his baby sister.”

“It honestly wasn’t even that big a deal. All it did was shake a few old stones loose. Apparently no one downtown even felt it.”

Claude chuckles, scrolling through his phone. “Don’t let Seteth hear you say that in class. He loves his historical buildings. I’m sure he’s devastated.”

“Oh, speaking of the Professor, my brother and his coworkers can’t stop speculating about what the two of you found in that royal tomb of yours. Thanks to that quake, it’s all over the news.” Hilda picks at her nails and pointedly does not ask about Claude’s insider scoop. “But since you managed to avoid a second accident down there, I’m sure you’ll be happy to know that I’ve got permission to use Holst’s cabin next weekend.”

“For what?”

She deflates. “The camping trip? You know, that thing you’re supposed to be in charge of, not me?”

“Didn’t we cancel it because of my concussion?”

“Marianne insisted on rescheduling since it’s our last year and all.” Hilda grins, smug. “You must’ve been too busy with a certain someone to notice.”

Has he? He’s spent plenty of time doing things with other people this semester. Yet as he racks his brain, Claude finds that Byleth is there in every memory. Sometimes as bright as the sun, other times as shy as a shooting star.

“Speaking of Byleth,” Hilda says, “the girls were wondering if she’d be interested in coming along too.”

Claude navigates away from a meme he has up on his phone (“we will rebuild,” the image says over a picture of a fallen soda can in the mess hall—a staple of the GMUearthquake hashtag) and locks the screen. “I thought we said no more tag-alongs after what happened with Sylvain last year. Why do they want her to come?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she sighs. “Maybe because she’s gotten so buddy-buddy with everyone that she’s practically a Golden Deer herself. But I wouldn’t know. I haven’t met her.”

With a groan, Claude sits up and prepares to look properly chided.

“Leonie texts her for workout advice. Raphael and Ignatz have apparently gotten meals with you two at lunch. And now Lysithea and Lorenz keep gushing over some party I wasn’t invited to. The first person you’ve ever shown even the slightest interest since, like, ever, and you don’t bother to introduce her to me? Your best friend?”

“An oversight, Hilda. Truly. I can only ask for your forgiveness.” 

Hilda huffs, but with no heat. She, unlike Lysithea, is not the type to hold grudges.

“Even if she were the type to be interested,” Claude says, “she hasn’t been answering my texts. Or anyone else’s. I checked.”

“Oh, yeah. I’m sure it must be hard with all these journalists pounding on Professor Cichol’s office every day. She’s probably getting swamped too.”

He thinks of Byleth in that room. Head bowed, hair like a veil. “I don’t think it’s that.”

Within seconds, Hilda’s startlingly pink eyes are a foot away from his face. “I knew it. What did you do, Claude?”

“Me?”

“You’ve been sulky and staring at your phone all week. So spill. Did you two have a fight?”

“Well, you see, it’s a bit more complicated than that. It’s…” To his surprise, his throat tightens. No matter how hard he tries, no words come out. No witty quip. No easy deflection. 

Claude averts his gaze, and Hilda stills, stunned.

“Oh jeez. This is new.” She plops back down on the couch. “Look, we’d totally get if you don’t want her to be there. Avoidance is a completely legitimate self-care tactic.”

“I have to face her eventually. At this point, I’ll take any chance to get my foot in the door.”

Hilda, queen of avoiding even the mildest discomfort, sighs, uncomprehending. “If you’re sure. Just don’t try too hard, okay? I’m not quite sure how to deal with all—” She gestures vaguely at him “—this for a weekend.”

With that, she hops off the couch and grabs her laptop from the coffee table.

“Where are you off to?”

“Oh, now that I’ve got us the cabin, I’m going to Leonie’s room so she can figure out what we actually need to pack. I’m no good at all these logistics.”

A fond laugh escapes him as his friend disappears up the stairs. “Never change, Hilda.”

☼☼☼

According to Mercedes, Doctor Flayn Cichol stops by the Co-Op every morning at 8:30 to order a caramel latte and a single blueberry muffin. She spends approximately thirty minutes at one of the window tables people-watching, though that time is often spent less on drinking and more on chatting with the occasional admirers who stop by her table to say hello. It is said that in the entire history of her being at Garreg Mach (which, Claude knows, is hyperbole, given that the woman still looks to be in her late twenties), neither student nor staff have successfully approached Doctor Cichol for a date. That, perhaps, is the root of her charm.

On the morning Claude seeks her out, the good doctor is in no mood for her admirers. She meanders into the Co-op fourteen minutes past nine, after most have dispersed for class. A gauzy headscarf hides her distinctive green curls. A pair of sunglasses too large for her round, fae-like face sits perched on her nose. It’s very movie star chic, the kind that draws more attention than it detracts. Out of respect, he waits until she’s settled at her table with her order before approaching, casually cutting off a student who, despite the woman’s best efforts, may or may not have recognized her.

“Going incognito to avoid the journalists as well, Doctor?”

Doctor Cichol peers up at him over the rim of her sunglasses. “Oh, am I that obvious?”

“I figured some of Seteth’s pursuers might be hoping that family is more talkative.” Claude winks. “Don’t worry—your secret’s safe with me.”

The woman smiles, pleased, and for a second, she looks like Byleth. Enough so that he entertains the idea that they might actually be sisters, as impossible as he knows that is.

“It is so good to see you, Claude. Have you been well?”

The question is enough of an invitation for him to slide into the seat across from her. “I’m hanging in there. Been a little hectic lately, what with everything going on.”

“I will admit that it has been exhausting watching my brother run around campus. I hope not to see you in my office fraught with stress as well.” 

“Wouldn’t dream of causing you trouble, Doc.”

With a chuckle, she breaks off a piece of her muffin and offers it to him. It’s a surprisingly casual gesture, one that catches him off guard. They aren’t strangers, by any means. The good doctor is a frequent visitor to Seteth’s office, and he’s stopped by her health center for his fair share of dubious injuries. Yet something strikes him as different about this. Something almost familial.

“Thanks, but I’m good,” Claude says, raising his hand to decline. “I actually wanted to ask you about Byleth. Haven’t seen her on campus for a while.”

He braces himself for the worst. But to his relief, Doctor Cichol simply sighs. “She is, as you are, hanging in there. She has not been feeling well, so she opted to stay at home for a bit.”

Ah, there it is—his daily pang of guilt. “Did she mention me at all?”

“Oh my.” The woman tilts her head. “Would there be a reason for her to?”

“Just curious,” he says with a shrug. “She hasn’t been answering my texts or my friend’s.”

“Well, if you have a message, I am happy to pass it along.”

Claude restrains his excitement as he slides a piece of paper across the table. “Some of my friends want to invite her to our camping trip this weekend. Here’s our planner’s number, if Byleth wants to talk to her directly.” The urge to share his own number, to say that Byleth is welcome to talk to him at any time, curls in his throat as Doctor Cichol inspects the message. “We had a deal, Byleth and I. I’d share some fun things she can do in her spare time in exchange for access to the excavation. Even if that last bit is on pause right now, I figure I can still hold up my end.”

“She did always seem happy coming home after one of her outings with you,” the doctor hums, nearly stopping Claude’s heart with the surprise. Finally, she slips the note into her purse and smiles in approval. “This will be just what she needs. I’ll be sure to let her know.”

“Thanks, Doc. I’ll head out so you can enjoy your breakfast in peace.”

Doctor Cichol sips her coffee and peers up at him. “Tell me, Claude. What do you know about Byleth?”

The question catches Claude halfway out of his seat. The woman doesn’t look accusatory. Just...curious.

“She’s your cousin, for one thing,” he begins, carefully. A bead of sweat trickles its way down his collar. “Works in archeology, like Seteth, and used to be a teacher. She’s mostly quiet, but her tongue can be pretty sharp once you get to know her.”

She chuckles. “I take it you have experienced that part first hand.”

“Oh, she’s gentle compared to Seteth. Besides, I prefer words over being tossed across a table.”

Thankfully, the woman seems to enjoy his joke. “If I may add, you may find that you have to be patient with her. Even if it seems like she is distant, I would trust that she will come back to you eventually.”

“Is she growing distant?” An unsettled feeling curls in Claude’s chest, tempered only by the smile the doctor gives him.

“I would not fret. Byleth can be a bit...delicate when it comes to her emotions, but she comes around, with time.”

The thought is ridiculous enough that Claude can’t help but laugh. “Delicate isn't a word I’d use to describe Byleth.”

“Not many would!” she chirps. “Just, consider it some friendly advice from a concerned family member.”

“I’ll keep it in mind, Doc.”

“Flayn,” she corrects him. “Please, do call me Flayn.”

☼☼☼

Later that evening, Hilda walks down the stairs into the living room with a triumphant sway to her step. She doesn’t share the contents of her conversation with Byleth. Only that the woman is coming and that they’re going to have to squeeze in an extra sleeping bag somewhere on the floor of the cabin. It doesn’t take long for Claude to piece together the motive behind Hilda’s enthusiasm, but it's not until they’re packing the cars on Friday afternoon that he manages to call her out on it. 

“Oh, don’t be such a spoilsport! Think of this as a favor from your best friend Hilda.”

“I’m pretty sure I’m old enough to handle my own conflicts.”

The smile on Hilda’s face does little to settle his discomfort. “All I’ll be doing is making sure she’s comfortable and having fun. Maybe even hype you up a bit, if I’m feeling generous. Then, once I get the two of you alone, you can swoop in and grovel for forgiveness.”

“Do you really have so little faith in my ability to make a good apology?”

“Oh, you know I believe in you, Claude. But sometimes a little nudge can make all the difference.”

Claude grimaces before tossing his sleeping bag in with the rest. ”You know, Hilda. You’d make something of yourself if you put this much effort into class.”

They pick up Byleth in a three-car caravan. Raphael and Claude with some luggage and sleeping bags. Leonie, Marianne, and Ignatz with space for the groceries. The remaining three are in Lorenz’s car, a dedicated passengers-only vehicle. The sight of Byleth in the roundabout at Canopus Station, the very place he picked her up on his motorcycle many months ago for a simple game of paintball, stings more than Claude expects it to. But perhaps not as much as the look she gives him when he steps out to retrieve her bag: a perfectly emotionless mask, pristine and faultless. 

“Hey there,” he says.

“Hey,” she responds.

Hilda, bounding over from Lorenz’s car, takes over the conversation from there. The two women talk like old friends—a talent of Hilda’s that will serve her well wherever she ends up next. Yet despite Hilda’s best attempts to sell the merits of Rapahel’s vehicle, Byleth chooses to ride in Lorenz’s. Lysithea, wide-eyed with hero worship, is pleased.

“Claude hogs her enough,” the girl huffs as Byleth slides into the backseat next to her. The lack of reaction on Byleth’s face doesn’t escape him.

In the driver’s seat of his car, Raphael frowns, puzzled. “You okay there, Claude? Looking a little glum.”

“Ah, don’t worry about it, buddy. Mind if we listen to some tunes on the way up?”

Raphael, graciously, does not pry. He turns on a radio station with songs several decades old and lets the scenery do the rest of the talking. They drive for two hours, exiting east from the valley and winding north alongside the Oghma Mountain range. The reds and golds of Garreg Mach thin more and more the further along they go, heralding the inevitable beginning of winter.

The Verdant Tarn campgrounds, still blooming in autumn colors, is a pocket of time nestled in the mountains that line Zanado Canyon. Holst’s cabin, one of many private camping cottages in the area, is not an impressive building by any measure. Just one large room with a fireplace, toilet, shower, and kitchenette. Outside there is a porch with a bench as well as a fire pit still stocked with logs. It’s primary perk is it’s quiet location away from other cottages, beneath a copse of gold larches.

Of the Deer that pull up to the tiny cabin, Claude is the first to hop out of his ride. He raps his knuckles against Lorenz’s window, then motions for Leonie to roll hers down as well.

“Alright,” he says, “You know the drill. I'll go in first to turn on the electricity.”

Hilda tosses him the keys from Lorenz’s passenger seat, which he catches with a flourish. “There goes our fearless leader,” Claude hears her say to Byleth behind him. “He’s always been like this, you know. Taking charge.”

“If you count jumping into things headfirst as leadership,” Lorenz retorts.

The smell of pine and a cloud of dust overwhelm Claude when he opens the cabin door. After a few disgruntled coughs, he lets muscle memory carry him across the room in the dark to the circuit breaker. Dodge the coat rack to the right. Then the dining table, barely large enough to fit a group of four. A chair catches him in the shin, still untucked from their breakfast on a previous trip. Grocery store pastries, he remembers through the stinging pain. To avoid having to wash the pans that are still on the drying rack.

More memories emerge as the breakers click and the lights hum to life. The deep green rug where they’d sit to play cards before rolling out their sleeping bags. The single couch they’d draw straws over each night—a bed fit for kings. On his way back to help the Deer unload their cars, Claude runs his hand over the names carved into the doorframe.

_Holst_  
_Balthus_  
_Glenn_

Later that night, after the Deer let their exhaustion from the road lull them to sleep, Claude dreams of the cabin in the following fall. A room as black as midnight with windows burning red and gold. In his dream, he watches Byleth run her fingers over the names in the doorway, eight instead three.

“Don’t,” he tells her as she crosses the threshold and disappears into the dark. “Don’t.”

☼☼☼

“This all started when we were sophomores,” Hilda explains to Byleth the next morning on their hike to the lake. It’s the same story that they’ve told the few guests they’ve brought to the cabin before. Petra. Ashe. Sylvain. And now Byleth, looking more awake than all eight of the Deer combined despite having slept on the same wooden floor all night.

Claude, as the usual keeper of the story, knows it beat by beat. How the Valentines had gifted Holst the cabin during college as a getaway for him and his friends. How they would pile into Holst’s SUV any chance they could to drive here and escape from the humdrum of tests and papers. By the time Hilda was in college, Holst hadn’t used the cabin for years. To Hilda, that fact was an inevitable consequence of life and work and schedules never quite in sync. To a sophomore-year Claude, restless from a summer with just his parents, it was an opportunity.

“Honestly, I thought it was a terrible idea,” Lysithea interjects in the middle of Hilda’s retelling. Her teeth chatter loudly from the chill of the late-autumn morning, so much so that Marianne wraps one of her scarves around the smaller girl’s neck to warm her up. “We nearly killed each other just living on the same floor as freshmen, and none of us particularly liked camping anyway.”

“Indeed,” Lorenz mumbles. “What did Claude say to convince you, Hilda? That’s always bothered me.”

It hadn’t been easy, Claude recalls with a striking fondness. His first ally was Leonie, who went on hunting trips with her father as a kid. The next was Raphael, a former camp counselor for a summer camp on the Airmuid River. Securing the support of Marianne, bird watcher and general nature enthusiast, was ultimately his most strategic move.

“With Marianne asking me, you know I couldn’t say no,” Hilda sighs, bumping her shoulder against Marianne’s. In a rare show of physical affection, the other girl bumps her back.

“Oh man, that first weekend was a mess.” Leonie, trailblazing her way at the front of the hiking line, chortles. “No one knew how anything in the cabin worked and we barely brought enough food.”

Ignatz’s face grows red from the embarrassment. “We went knocking door to door at the rental cabins to see if we could borrow things. Luckily it was still Horsebow Moon, so a lot of families were on the mountain to enjoy the weather.”

“Yet you decided to return after your spring finals week?” Byleth asks. “And twice last year as well?”

Claude turns his head to answer her, expecting to see those lagoon-still eyes glinting up at him with curiosity. But she’s at the front of the line with Leonie, expression hidden by the fall of her hair. 

“Because it was fun!” Raphael calls from the rear of the line.

“It wasn’t as bad as it could have been,” Hilda admits with a reluctant shrug. “At least we weren’t out in a tent or something. That would’ve been awful.”

A swell of pride rises in Claude’s chest. “Well, well. It sounds like all of you are finally admitting I had a good idea after all.”

Lysithea rolls her eyes. “That first trip would’ve been a dud if the rest of us didn’t figure something out. You’re just lucky.”

Their destination glimmers a bright turquoise under the mid-morning sun as they descend from their hiking path. The lake’s shoreline is emptier than Claude remembers it; in the fading summer of Horsebow Moon, the sounds of families and children would bounce all across the water. Kayaks and row boats in their bright colors dotted the water like game pieces scattered across a table. He’d be lucky to get anyone in the water today with how chilly it is. The lake’s rental shack, at least, is still open—hanging on for one last weekend before succumbing to the winter months.

“They rent fishing gear,” Claude mentions once he gets a chance to sidle up to Byleth. “Caught a pike up here once. Didn’t taste too bad grilled over a campfire.”

For a second, the woman’s eyes spark with a familiar, muted interest. But before she has a chance to respond, Lysithea latches onto her arm with a grin.

“Let’s go out on a canoe, Byleth! It’s really pretty out on the water.”

“Lysithea,” Hilda chides. “Shouldn’t we let our guest decide what she wants to do?”

“Canoeing sounds fun,” assures Byleth, the glimmer in her eyes conspicuously absent.

And just like that, his best chance of getting her attention today eludes his grasp.

From the pier, Claude watches the canoes launch off into the water: Hilda and Leonie in one, Byleth and Lysithea in the other. On the shoreline, Ignatz, Marianne, and Lorenz wander away in the opposite direction. He faintly hears Lorenz wax lyrical about the waterbirds paddling in the shallows. Catches the tell-tale flash of Ignatz pulling out his sketchbook as Marianne recites the birds’ names like a song. 

Ultimately, it’s only Raphael who stays. At the edge of the pier, his friend sets up the two folding chairs that he carried from the cabin next to the pile of backpacks they’ve been tasked to look after. Then, he grabs two fishing rods from the shack—50% off the rental fee with bait included. Claude takes the change of plans with the best grin he can muster. After all, he doesn’t have the heart to tell Raphael that he was never really interested in the fish.

They chat about the little things as they prep. Classes, the weather, plans for their winter holidays. When their conversation hits its first lull, Claude’s mind inevitably begins to drift. He considers the equipment in his hands. How, despite advancements in technology, the core methods of fishing have remained relatively unchanged.

Byleth would enjoy that conversation, he thinks. She has a knack of taking his musings and offering little gems of observation in return. Observations that glitter and cast light from unexpected angles, leaving him curious for more. Raphael is a pleasant enough conversation partner, but Claude finds more and more that pleasant is never quite enough for him. At least, now that he knows the alternative.

“So uh, are you and Byleth okay, Claude?”

A sharp pain darts through Claude’s hand as the tip of the hook he’s been working with pierces his skin. He grimaces at the drop of blood that pools on the pad of his thumb. Then at the worm still wriggling between his fingers, adamant to stay alive. “That obvious, huh?”

“Well, I kinda thought something was weird when we picked her up yesterday, but it didn’t look like you wanted to talk about it.” Raphael reaches over and threads the worm onto Claude’s hook in a single, dissonantly gentle motion.

“Should’ve known I can’t pull the wool over your eyes,” Claude chuckles wryly. “Let’s just say I messed up.” 

“Like that time you stole everyone’s shoes for that prank in sophomore year?”

“Worse, if you can believe it. Honestly can’t blame Byleth if she never wants to talk to me again.” He casts out his line and watches the hook arc through the air. The faintest hints of ripples radiate outwards when it hits the water many yards away. He wonders if some of those minuscule bits of energy will make it all the way to the canoes—and whether the canoes will send anything back in return.

Raphael hums in consideration. “My little sister’s like that too. She doesn’t talk to anyone when she’s upset.”

“Do you two get into a lot of fights?”

“I wouldn’t say a lot. Maybe a normal amount?”

As an only child, an approximation of a “normal” amount of arguing amongst siblings eludes him. Still, Claude nods as if knowing, idly fiddling with his line. “Hard to imagine it, honestly. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you arguing with anyone.”

“Really? Now that you mention it, I think me and her fought recently.”

“Oh?”

“We were on the phone two weeks ago, and she was talking about applying for college scholarships .” Raphael scratches the back of his neck and sighs. “To be honest, I still don’t know what I said to make her so mad.”

“What’re you going to do about it?”

“I dunno. Give her space? It’s like my grandpa says: you gotta let people forgive you when they’re ready.”

Out on the water, the float rests still and quiet. The water will get to the bait before a fish, Claude knows. It can only wriggle for so long until it drowns. “I don’t know if I can wait till Byleth’s ready.”

“Huh? Why not?”

Many reasons, Claude tells himself. There’s the fact that all his hard work hinges on this apology. That the greatest archeological find of the century now teeters on the verge of permanent obscurity. Nights of scheming, planning, waiting—all for naught. But the more he tries to justify it, the more that empty feeling in his stomach weighs down like a stone.

So instead, he shrugs.

“You aren’t going anywhere, are you?”

Claude chuckles. “Gotta get that diploma first.”

“Then, is Byleth leaving?”

The thought gives him pause. It’s not the first time that he’s considered it, but his insides churn nonetheless. “Dunno. She’s got the excavation to finish, her family is here.” If they really are her family, that is. “But someone’s gonna have to leave by graduation.”

“You really think she’s going to be mad at you for that long? You two are such good friends.” Raphael scratches his head in thought. “Maybe she does want to talk to you but doesn’t know how.”

He forces a grin. “Thanks, buddy. Let’s hope you’re right about that.”

“Cheer up, Claude. I’m sure you’ll come up with a way to fix everything!”

Rapahel’s words bring Claude back to another pier, another lake. To a Byleth wrapped in a leather jacket, smelling of thrift store mothballs and spilt alcohol from the bar.

_“I’m sure you’ll manage something,” the phantom Byleth tells him as her smile morphs into despair and the night sky shrinks down to the claustrophobic height of a small and dusty tomb. “You always seem to somehow.”_

Claude stands up, legs nearly buckling from the suddenness of the motion. First goes his jacket. Then, his shoes and pants. He’s taking off his shirt when he says to Raphael:

“Mind grabbing the towel and emergency thermal blanket out of Marianne’s backpack for me?”

“Huh?”

When Claude hops off the pier, it’s not the cold that he notices. Nor is it the rabbit-quick pace of his heart or the icy air he instinctively gulps when his feet hit the water. It’s the quiet that accompanies his descent—that brief moment of suspension into a knife-smooth slide along gravity’s arc into the lake. It’s even quieter, underneath. No undersea palaces in which to hide, no magical creatures of the loch. Just him and the light from the mid-noon sun playing across the algae on the pier’s columns. Tiny fish, like little stars, dart between his legs.

Claude knows that, soon, he’ll have to surface. That the restless clamor of his thoughts, currently held back by the pressure building in his lungs and the warmth escaping from his skin, will return in full force as soon as he does. But he holds on for a second longer, thinking of his earthworm and the hook and whether it had a moment of peace before the long, quiet dark.

☼☼☼

“Unbelievable.”

Claude leans forward and stares curiously at Lysithea past the crackling campfire. The girl looks triumphant. Smug, really. As if she hadn’t just been hanging on the edge of her log for the past ten minutes, her half-eaten marshmallow left forgotten on its skewer in her lap. The rest of the Deer, content from a dinner of kebabs and a few scrawny fish Raphael fished from the lake without Claude’s help, watch the exchange with interest. As if they too aren’t already aware of the arc about to unfold.

“Sirens in the lake? _That’s_ the story you came up with this year? Even _I’m_ not scared of that.” Lysithea crosses her arms. “Let me guess, next you’re going to say that you jumped off the pier because these sirens were calling for you.”

“Is that how I got wet?” Claude steeples his fingers in feigned concern. “I only remember being in the thermal blanket.”

Before the girl can respond, Hilda chimes in from the across the fire. “You know, my brother used to tell a similar story about that lake. But it was about ghosts, not sirens.”

“G-ghosts?” Lysithea, having picked up her marshmallow, lowers it again.

Hilda fiddles with her hair—her usual tell. “Yeah. Like, there’s this kid who drowned after falling from a canoe. And a lady who committed suicide by drowning because her husband passed away. Holst says that they look for people to join them in the water because they’re lonely.”

“In some myths, sirens and ghosts are one and the same,” says Ignatz, their blissfully unaware co-conspirator. “The rusalka in Northern Faerghus and Sreng, for example.”

“Ah, some of the local staff at the Embassy would talk about the rusalka during the winter. Vengeful ghosts turned into water spirits.” Claude hums. Makes a show of rubbing his chin in thought. “Wonder if they can live this far south.”

“You’re joking, right?” Lysithea’s face pales. “That’s just a fairy tale. Magic and ghosts don’t exist.”

“Did you see anything under the water, Claude?” asks Leonie as she picks meat off the translucent bones on her plate.

Claude glances over to where Byleth sits half-hidden in the dark, nursing the same drink she’s had since the beginning of dinner. Then, he shifts his gaze a little above the woman’s head, off into the deep woods. The space between his eyes grows numb as he pretends to zone out. “Well…”

Lysithea bolts up, grabbing her plate before it tumbles into the fire. “I-I’m going inside. It’s getting cold out here.”

“Oh, time for cards? I’m down!” Raphael folds his plate—the fourth of the night—and places it in the garbage bag tied to one of the logs. Together, the Deer clean up the area around the fire pit—plates, bottles, leftover marshmallow sticks—and head back into the cabin. When Claude and Hilda return with the bucket of water and shovel for the fire, only Byleth remains.

“Oh, Byleth.” Hilda jostles Claude eagerly with her elbow. “Are you going to be out here for a little while longer?”

“I’m coming,” the woman mumbles. She places the empty glass bottle at her feet and stands up from her log. Something about the motion looks off—a suspicion that Byleth confirms with a few wobbly steps. As Claude instinctively reaches out to steady the woman, the heavy stench of alcohol catches his nose.

“You’re drunk,” he says in disbelief.

Byleth wrinkles her nose but says nothing in her defense.

“Hey Claude,” says Hilda. “Can you hang with her outside for a bit? I imagine it’s going to be a little hectic in there right now, and maybe the cold can help sober her up.”

He looks from Byleth to Hilda, then back to Byleth again. From the cabin, he can hear someone shrieking about a spider. Then, a thud, like Raphael trying to maneuver something through the tiny kitchen.

“Sure thing,” he says, forcing a grin. 

Hilda winks, then runs back inside to help with whatever is going on. The crackle of the fire prods awkwardly at the silence that hangs between him and Byleth, but Claude, undeterred, moves to seize the window of opportunity graciously granted to him.

“Come on, one step at a time. Let’s get you sitting.”

Byleth, Claude is not surprised to find, is all stubborn muscle and power. She could easily overwhelm him if not for her current lack of coordination, but after a few harrowing steps, they eventually find themselves back down on a log. As he takes a moment to catch his breath, Claude catches the woman sneaking a sip from something tucked in her jacket—an unmarked bottle, though he doesn’t need a label to know what’s inside.

“So whatcha got there, friend?”

“S’from Seteth’s cabinet,” she mumbles into the bottle’s top.

Claude reaches out and gently pries the bottle from her grasp. It comes with little resistance, though Byleth’s resulting pout startles him enough to nearly give her opening to snatch it back. 

_Shit, that was cute,_ he thinks as his mouth says, “And here you got me thinking you’re good with your liquor.”

“I am. This stuff’s special.”

Out of curiosity, he sniffs the bottle. The smell burns hotter than any Almyran spice, yet there is a hint of sweetness dissonant enough to pique his interest. “Fuck it,” he mutters as he takes a swig.

The regret is almost instant.

“Shit, what’s in here?”

Byleth places a finger to her lips, slightly off center. “Family secret.”

The thought of Flayn—or anyone without Byleth’s inhuman constitution—drinking this would make him laugh if his head could just stop pounding. He places the bottle just out of sight and leans back to keep his face out of the fire’s heat. Stars wink at him through the pinhole gaps between the trees. There are so many here compared to the valley, yet even now he can only see a few. 

_Time to work in that magical apology, Claude,_ he thinks. But none of the many lines he prepared for this opportunity seem quite right.

Moments later, several shadows pass through the blanket of night sky. Birds, he assumes at first. But their tails are too long and their wings too pointed and suddenly, a call that sends a chill of excitement down his spine reverberates through the air.

“Huh. Never been here during wyvern migration season before.” He senses Byleth grow still next to him. “They won’t land here, if you’re worried about that. They’re as scared of us as we are of them.”

She scoffs. “The whelps, perhaps. And their parents?”

“As mellow as old farm ponies! And if I had to guess, those ones up there are probably even a bit smaller than that.”

Byleth frowns at him, perplexed. 

“Ah, the history behind it is kind of complicated. The Hunts of the 400s. The Winters of 550 and 551. It doesn’t help that there’s less territory for them to grow big nowadays.”

“No more riding them, then?”

“Almyra still has some wyverns large enough to ride for cultural reasons, but the FAU stopped breeding them for war centuries ago. With cars and planes, you only see them out in Almyran rural areas.”

She hums, as if the knowledge is of no particular consequence. But then, in a voice as small as the sky is vast, she asks, “Did you know that Almyrans bury their dead with wyverns?”

“Sky burials, was it? That stopped a long time ago as well. Not many people want their corpses offered up to wild wyverns these days.”

“Would you choose that? To be buried that way?”

Claude blinks.

“Indulge me,” she says.

“Well, I can’t be buried like that. Not legally at least.” 

Byleth’s eyes bore into him, expectant.

“But,” he says, drawing out the vowel. “If I had the option, I could see myself doing it.”

“Why?” Her hands flex, as if attempting to grab the neck of a bottle no longer in her reach. When she notices what she’s doing, she tucks them against her sides. “There’d be nothing left of you, you know. No grave to mourn, no way to be near the people you leave behind in death.”

“Well, it’s poetic, don’t you think? Returning to the wind through that wyvern. Being the energy in its wings as it soars through the sky. I think I could be content with a finale like that.” Claude inhales, savoring the air that fills his lungs. He imagines how much colder it would be, high up in the sky. How much it would sting, how alive he’d feel. 

“There’s a good poem about this, you know,” he says. “ _Love, I return myself to the wind—_ ”

“ _—On wings, I follow thee into our promised dawn_ ,” Byleth finishes for him. She brings a knee up to her chest and curls into herself. “‘The Sky Burial of Khalid the Unifier.’ The epitaph without a tomb. They say that it was the King’s last gift to his wife. If you could call it a gift.”

Fuck.

As he watches Byleth shut down in front of him, Claude finds himself cursing a lot of things. His near pathological need to show off at inappropriate times. His subconscious knowledge of that particular piece of lore, absorbed when he was a child obsessed with a namesake and reinforced by years of inspirational memes shared ad nauseum on social media. For once, he hadn’t intended to catch Byleth off guard. After all, none of the ballads—none of the countless dramatic recreations of King Claude and Queen Beles’s romance that he found too embarrassing as a child—could have ever prepared him for how strongly this would affect her.

And yet here he is. 

“I’m sorry.”

“‘bout what?” Byleth mumbles.

“About the tomb. It’s my fault that—“

“Don’t. Please.”

The edge in her voice startles him. “You don’t even know what I’m about to say.”

“Maybe, maybe not. S’exactly why I asked.”

“This isn’t like you, Byleth.”

“It isn’t? How would you know that?” The corner of her mouth twitches, as if laughing at an inside joke. “I’m always like this, Claude. Stunted emotions are nothing new.”

“Ouch. Just because you pretend to be stoic all the time doesn’t mean you are.”

Byleth’s expression falters, just for a second. “I’ll be fine,” she insists. “It’ll pass.”

“That’d sound much more convincing if you looked me in the eye and said it.” He leans forward, desperate for her attention. “Why did you come on this trip? You knew you couldn’t avoid me here.”

Byleth fiddles with the sleeve of her jacket. Then, after a long moment of silence, she sighs. A sound like brittle leaves in the wind. “I wanted clarity.”

“Clarity?”

She nods.

“About what?”

“Things I thought I could forget. Things I didn’t realize I had. But I’m more lost now than before.” She tosses a rock into the fire, sending up sparks. “It’s like I’m stuck in a dream, and I don’t know if I’m awake or still sleeping.”

“What kind of dream?” Claude asks, unable to rein in his curiosity.

“I wish I knew.”

“I can help you find out, if you let me.”

She looks at him, finally. But it’s the kind of look that passes right through him, seeing elsewhere. “All of the lovely words in the world won’t help, Claude. Even yours.”

_If not mine, then whose?_

Frustration roils heavy in Claude’s chest, entangled in some messy other feeling that he can’t quite name. “What if I were to say that I understand? That I know you’re—“

Byleth closes her eyes. No—clenches them. It’s an unfitting reaction for a queen, much less a goddess. But for the woman he’s come to know these past few months—this strange, infuriating woman who runs him around in circles, whose smiles hit him like an arrow through the chest—it’s just another moment of vulnerability caused by him picking at a wound not entirely healed. It’s a wonder that she’s still here, despite it all.

And it is then, in that very brief second, that Claude finally understands what Flayn was telling him in the Co-op.

“Trust her, huh?” Claude mutters to himself, running his hand through his hair with a sigh. 

Byleth blinks. “Claude?”

He doesn’t answer her right away. Instead, he rubs his temples, wipes his face with his hands. He looks up to the sky, as if the stars could give him answers, but finds only firelight dancing off the undersides of larch needles overhead.

Claude has never liked having matters lay entirely in someone else’s court. There always has to be something else in his back pocket—knowledge, evidence, a way to wriggle his way out of results he doesn’t like. Deep down, perhaps he always knew that these ambushes were nothing more than cowardice. At least until the theater, that fear had been harmless. 

But what excuse does he have now, when she’s in a state like this?

“You’ve probably guessed that I have a lot of things to ask you, Byleth.”

“You usually do,” she affirms bluntly. Despite himself, Claude almost chuckles; it’s not like he doesn’t deserve her tone.

“But those questions can wait, for now. Until you’re ready. This weekend, I’ll just be here, pretty words and more.”

“And what if I don’t want those pretty words?”

“Then I trust that you’ll let me know when it’s okay to talk.”

The woman’s eyes narrow. He and Byleth stare at each other in silence, green eyes on green. Then, in an achingly slow movement, Byleth places her hands on both sides of his face. Runs her thumbs across his beard and pushes the hair out of his eyes. 

His skin under her fingertips burns. 

“This is familiar,” he jokes. She must still be drunk, but her face is dead serious.

“I don’t understand you,” she whispers.

“You’re not so easy to figure out yourself.”

A strange gravity pulls him forward, but Byleth tilts his face to the side instead, toward the firelight. Like a jeweler inspecting a gem. “So different, and yet—” 

A shudder dances it’s way up Claude’s spine and over his shoulders. He pulls away just in time to redirect a sneeze toward the fire, the movement so violent that he nearly falls off his seat.

“Sorry about that.” He laughs to calm himself down. “Probably shouldn’t have gone for a swim today, huh?”

Byleth retracts her hands slowly. The remnants of unsaid things still linger on her face, but instead she asks, “Why did you jump in the water?”

“You weren’t the only one looking for clarity today, I guess. A brisk swim to clear my head seemed like a good idea at the time.” Claude winks at her. “Don’t tell Lysithea.”

“It’s too cold for swimming,” she says. “You could have died from the shock.”

It takes a second for Claude to realize that she’s scolding him. It takes another to realize that he actually likes it. “I knew what I was doing. Still in one piece, aren’t I? See?” He wiggles his fingers at her. She doesn’t smile, but she doesn’t quite frown either.

It’s a start.

“I hope tomorrow’s activity won’t cause you to be as reckless.”

“Just an early morning hike to a ridge, so we can leave for home after lunch.” He peers at her from the corner of his eye. “Ah, we’ll probably see wyverns, as a heads up. Since it’s migration season.”

“I’m not afraid of them,” Byleth mumbles, petulant. Claude has to hide his grin in the shadows.

“I figured. Need to go inside?”

“When will I have to wake up tomorrow?”

“Before dawn, I’d say.”

Byleth nods, a movement so slight that it looks like she’s drifting to sleep. He raises his shoulder as an offering, and to his surprise, she takes it, resting her head against the curve of his neck.

“I'll wake you,” Claude says as he tosses a piece of kindling on the fire.

But Byleth is already asleep.

☼☼☼

In the early morning hours, that blue-tinted world just before dawn breaks, there’s a hush that holds a certain gravity. It keeps the birds sleeping in their nests and the trees still. It keeps the Golden Deer silent as they slink up the mountain path—past the fork that took them to the lake, then upward. Not even the dying leaves beneath their feet seem eager to break the spell. To Claude, it’s like time itself is holding its breath. Waiting for the sun to signal its start.

From the ridge, they can see for miles. The jagged peaks of the Oghma Mountains, the empty plains of Zanado. And all around them, framed by valleys of dying trees, flocks of brown and black creatures travel eastward. 

When Claude looks at Byleth on that ridge, he realizes that she’s not looking at the wyverns. He follows her gaze to the Deer—to Leonie rubbing Lysithea’s arms to keep the girl warm. To Hilda posing as Ignatz takes several social media photos worth dying for. Raphael sneaks Claude a thumbs up as he hands Marianne and Lorenz a warm thermos of cocoa, which he had brewed before any of the others had a chance to wake.

“Am I still dreaming?” Byleth whispers.

When they lock eyes, Claude offers Byleth a smile. “If you’re enjoying it, does it really matter?”

The woman says nothing in reply. In the distance, the wyverns call out their morning song. The cries echo and fade across the empty sky, chasing the sun still hidden below the horizon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m back! Thank you to all of you who are still reading this fic, and special thanks to IristheMessenger, wearwind, my other Discord buddies, and my partner for their support and encouragement. Many things blew up in my personal life immediately after I posted the previous chapter, so it took some time to get to a point where I could finish this one. We’re one chapter away from rounding off Claude and Byleth’s first semester, and I hope you all stick around for their second! Feel free to follow me on either Twitter or Tumblr @verdantstars to keep up with how I’m doing.
> 
> **A Note on Sky Burials:**  
>  In Zoroastrian practice (the implied reference/analogue for some of Almyra’s cultural beliefs), corpses traditionally are not cremated or buried, as that might defile the fire or earth (which are considered sacred). Instead, they would be placed out in the open on burial platforms (towers of silence) where carrion birds could pick the bones clean. I couldn't find much information on how ancient Persian/Zoroastrian royalty might have done this (and found some debate over whether they adhered to it strictly), but given Claude’s beliefs as seen in various supports, I think Claude would have chosen some form or variation of sky burial.
> 
> The term “sky burial” is more commonly used to refer to similar practices of excarnation in parts of Asia, but I couldn’t find a better term to describe the practice itself rather than the sites of practice. Much like the sky burials mentioned in this fic, sky burials across many countries today have waned due to factors such as religious marginalization, urban growth, and a shrinking vulture population; Zoroastrians, for the most part, have had to adapt and find other methods. 
> 
> If you’re interested in learning more but are uncomfortable with dead bodies, please note that some results for sky burials on Wiki or Google may have images or photographs that include corpses in them.


End file.
